


Unsolicited Providence

by scipunx



Series: Unsolicited [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Character Development, Friendship, Gen, Mental Health Issues, OC!Kurenai, Original Character-centric, Pre-Series, Reincarnation, Self-Insert, Slice of Life, Snarky Protagonist, and a deconstruction of the Narutoverse, cute ninja kids, with a sidedish of angst and self-introspection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-23
Updated: 2015-05-15
Packaged: 2018-02-09 23:02:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 57,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2001309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scipunx/pseuds/scipunx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A snarky, genre savvy jaywalker finds herself decorating the asphalt and reborn into a stratocracy where child soldiers are the norm. People she comes to care for will die and she's unwilling to play the hero… but as Kurenai, maybe she has to. Or not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. lotus (rebirth)

**Author's Note:**

> I've read many self-inserts with an OC who almost passively accepts the Narutoverse's absurd policies and traditions and just seems to go with being the heroic protagonist. Really, if you were placed in a dangerous as hell environment, you'd be willing to selflessly sacrifice your life for strangers? Just like that? You think it'd be easy adjusting to a universe which goes against all of your ingrained beliefs and in which others were out to kill you?
> 
> This fic tries to portray a realistic self-insert which exposes the constant dark undercurrent of being trapped in a crapsack world. I write in British English as I am Australian, so discrepancies in spelling and specific terms will be apparent to you US readers.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being reborn into the Narutoverse isn't that great.

Throughout my awfully shortened lifetime, I had proudly proclaimed that there was no heaven, purgatory and hell, no reincarnation or other delusional human fantasies of an afterlife. Such silly wishful thinking could have been debunked by the brilliance of simple logic, reasoning, blah, blah, blah, insert skeptical, freethinking, atheistic rant and praise for science here.

Well, fuck me dead and proper, how wrong was I.

I used to think that death was a perpetual state of nothingness, like an eternal sleep. The thought of non-existence scared me shitless as I had so much left to accomplish, so many regrets and a to-do list the size of the figuratively bloody Universe. I had also held the mistaken belief that I was an extremely skilled jaywalker, and that arrogance was, unfortunately, my own self-inflicted undoing. My deepest apologies to whoever’s job it was to clean the resulting mess up and scrape me off of the literally bloody asphalt.

All I could remember was this sudden, all-consuming agony before total darkness. When I came to, I expected to be lying in a hospital bed, as my rational mind would have thought. Alas, I was experiencing my worst nightmare: childbirth. I felt the sensation of some release, a rush of cold air and the infernal sound of a screaming, bawling infant. Jeebus, I thought, couldn’t anyone shut that little fucker up? And then, it dawned on me.

I was the source of the torturous sound. I was that little fucker.

Holy shit, reincarnation was real.

I was bombarded with the faces of surgically masked strangers, a blinding light and deafening noise. My only natural reaction was to cry like a goddamn baby, because, well, I was a goddamn baby. Amongst the commotion, there was a happy exclamation in an unintelligible foreign language that I couldn’t quite identify through the sensory overload. Well, this was a pleasant surprise. I was already bilingual in my past life so a third language would come in handy. Multilingualism, here I come!

They were manhandling me into a swathe of soft blankets before I was shoved in front of the face of a very tired-looking woman. Strands of dark hair were plastered onto her sweaty forehead and her lips were chapped but her brown eyes brightened at the sight of my pathetic, crying and undoubtedly ugly form. Her expression immediately morphed into one of unadulterated happiness and relief. Inexplicably, from that single moment, I couldn’t help the feeling of love that flooded through me for this stranger who was to become my second mother. She hushed my cries, soothing my burning lungs and cradled me gently in her arms.

“ _Hello, Kurenai-chan.”_

Japanese. I was Japanese. At least I got to keep some aspects of my former life as being both Asian and female. My eleven-year old self as a disgusting weeaboo would have squealed at this dream come true… but wait, Kurenai? It was an interesting name that rang a bell. I was instantly reminded of _Naruto_ and wondered if my parents were massive otaku as to name me after a manga character.

Large hands transferred me into the arms of another stranger but when I set my gaze upon his face, I was shocked to stillness. Red eyes. Paralysing red, ringed eyes. What the hell? Maybe it was some medical condition? I’d never heard of such a thing but surely…

“ _Welcome to the family, Yuuhi Kurenai.”_

No. Oh, HELL NO. I could only recognise the two words of my full name but the impending doom was all too evident. This was not happening, this was utterly, completely, fucking insane—

“ _You will make a fine kunoichi someday, my daughter.”_

As soon as I heard the word, “kunoichi”, as if on cue, I began to wail.

* * *

Success, in most Earth-bound societies, is based primarily on intelligence, diligence and a pinch of Machiavellianism. It is a meritocracy where one climbs the academic ranks at the beginning of our schooling, studying our asses off to get straight A’s and stumble our way through a tertiary education application for acceptance into top-tier institutions. Extracurriculars are also highly favoured and the wankers deciding the fate of our future careers think that they show “character”, evidence of not solely being a massively socially inept nerd. So, armed with charisma, intelligence and healthy ambition, one can have a successful career, a thriving social life and die with a little more dignity than everyone else. Of course, it is a different case if you have talent coming out from your ass and can be some famous or celebrity athlete or musician, artist and what have you but those are rare exceptions.

Now, facing my newfound dilemma, I had to defenestrate all of that aforementioned bullshit and figure out how not to get myself killed in the average day.

Solution: Become a ninja.

Pros: Magically superhuman abilities, self-defence, a great paycheck, a fit bod from all of that training and societal recognition.

Cons: Insanely detrimental psychological consequences and being in immense danger with death constantly looming over my head.

Well, the pros certainly outnumbered the cons but they sure as hell didn’t outweigh them.

Aside from my world-shattering problem, I also had to deal with the total pain of not being able to utilise my limbs properly or openly vocalise my thoughts. I felt so disabled and relinquished of my free will. Everyone was sickeningly patronising with the way they treated me and fine, it wasn’t their fault but it still pissed me off. I was trapped in the body of a helpless newborn with the mind of a young freakin’ adult. I had almost finished my first year of university, having just begun to find some footing in the “real world”, as they called it and now, it was all stripped away from me. I mourned for the loss of my friends and family and I wondered if they were returning the favour. I wondered how many people attended my funeral. But that was all in a past of which I had to put behind me.

Being a baby was also mind-numbingly boring. In the beginning of my second life, a majority of my time was spent crying, sleeping and drooling over my own chin like a pitiful vegetable. However, my mind was constantly rife with thoughts of the future and something hugely different from my past universe: chakra. There were pinpricks of sensation throughout my entire body. It was slight at first but grew to a familiar consistency, pooling into a comforting warmth within my belly. I could _feel_ chakra actively flowing through their pathways. It was totally fascinating. I often tried manipulating it to no avail; I was still too young.

Over the next few months, I improved on my Japanese and could eventually understand most rudimentary terms and phrases, expanding my previously crude knowledge attained through watching anime and reading manga. Experimenting with my physical abilities also proved to be of some entertainment. My vocal folds seemed to be too underdeveloped for me to produce any coherent form of speech and much of it came out as gurgles and idiotic baby talk. I also still couldn’t navigate myself at all. From what little I could remember from developmental psychology, I had no idea how a baby with a fully developed mind could fit into any theory.

Hinoiri, my mother, stayed at home and played the domestic role most of the time of feeding me, putting me to sleep and changing soiled nappies. Much dignity was lost with someone else cleaning up after my own piss and shit. She was kind-hearted and lovely but held a fierce streak, the quintessential yamato nadeshiko. Yoruo was often away on missions as a shinobi but was a dutiful father and spent whatever free time he had with his daughter. His stern face contradicted his hilarious behaviour whenever he was around me. Playing peekaboo with a jounin who could kill you in two seconds sure did no favours for their reputation. I had to hand it to them, though. After willingly putting up with all of my crap, figurative or otherwise, I grew to truly appreciate and love them as my own original parents. I finally had a functional family.

They knew that I had an above-average intelligence, though. The little things gave it away. Seemingly self-aware actions, appropriate reactions and my premature ability to recognise and differentiate between people were all noted by my parents. They thought that I was gifted, that _I would make a good kunoichi_. This terrified me. I did not want to be a prodigy and be forced onto the front lines as a child soldier. I did not want to have my first kill at less than five years of age and I refused to be brainwashed into blind patriotism à la Danzo, Koharu and that other guy of the shitty council. Hell, I wasn’t even certain if I wanted to become a kunoichi at all.

So, I dumbed down. Just a tad, though. Some prideful part of me still wanted recognition for being bright.

* * *

Friends and relatives often came to visit and annoyingly cooed at me while I was forced to stay put and endure comments along the lines of, “Aww, she’s so cute!” I deliberately spat up on the more irritating individuals and burst out crying at the pricks who thought that it was a good idea to bounce an infant. Contrary to popular belief, no, it is neither stimulating nor fucking calming to the baby when you bounce them. It felt more akin to experiencing an earthquake and it was scary as hell.

With the coming and going of various people, I recognised a few of them from the Narutoverse. Yoruo was a reputable jounin and had connections in the shinobi network, maintaining amicable ties with several clans. The future clan heads of Ino-Shika-Chou once paid me a visit as their genin selves and I found a great delight in tugging all three of the men’s long hair. My family was acquainted with various Uchiha as well, most likely out of respect for the Yuuhi’s mastery of genjutsu.

My father was not too shabby at all and also shared an acquaintance with the Sarutobi clan. Somehow, he had managed to secure an invitation to the home of Sarutobi Hiruzen, the motherfuckin’ Hokage himself.

“Kurenai-chan, is it?” he smiled down at me with a younger face while I giggled happily and kicked my legs around in his arms. “My son is only a few months younger than you.”

Handing me back to Yoruo, the Hokage took a smaller, swaddled infant from his wife, Biwako and presented him to both my father and I while wearing a proud expression.

“This is Asuma.”

Holy motherfucking shit. I was staring at my future boyfriend and the future father of my child. No, wait… _Kurenai’s_ future boyfriend. While I did think that Asuma was pretty awesome in the series, I wasn’t sure of how much I wanted to bump uglies with the guy. It was really, really disturbing to think of sex and the same baby right in front of me together in the same sentence.

Oh great, I had to go through puberty again.

I also had no notion of how this timeline worked. Was it self-consistent? Would everything in canon inevitably happen, regardless of my actions? Was I fated to bear Asuma’s son?

Was everyone doomed to die?

Looking at Asuma now, he was a tiny little thing, sleeping peacefully and completely unaware of how in thirty or so years from now, he would be dead. Almost everyone who I had met earlier would also be dead. Suddenly, foresight of the future didn’t seem very appealing. I was no hero. I was never virtuous in my past life and all in all, used to be quite a self-interested bastard who really didn’t do much for others. Being part of the military was definitely not on my agenda and I had no intentions of dying yet again. Patriotism was a laughable concept to me and the Will of Fire? Ain’t nobody got time for dat shit, yo! True Neutral 4 lyfe.

I must seem like a despicable person but every other average individual was sure as hell not selfless or a martyr. Not everyone could be the Good and kickass shounen protagonist, or else _Naruto_ wouldn’t have been named after a single goddamn character. Who was I kidding? I didn’t deserve this second chance at life.

But they didn’t deserve to die, either.

Moral quandaries were such a bitch to figure out. My temperament and qualities were better suited to a behind-the-scenes position, something like Research and Development. I was also defiantly opposed to going into politics. Could I even be bothered to meticulously map out future events and have a plan of action to change them? And even then, could I even be successful in doing so? There were too many risks and not enough certainties.

Someone was laughing. I was pulled from my depressing contemplations and set my eyes on Asuma who had managed to reach out and had taken hold of Hiruzen’s goatee. My father was chuckling unabashedly at the Sandaime who looked positively delighted at his son’s development.

“It looks like he’ll definitely follow in his father’s footsteps to grow a beard!” Hiruzen joked, laughing before letting out a small exclamation of pain at the sharp tug of his facial hair.

The scene before me was so… precious. That father and son bond was going to fray in the future and would never be mended due to Hiruzen’s death at the hands of Orochimaru. But I could prevent that. Orochimaru would be captured and imprisoned early so that countless many could be spared. Obito and Rin didn’t have to die, Kakashi could be happy and Obito wouldn’t go batshit insane, so no Kyuubi destruction, no Minato or Kushina dying and no Fourth Shinobi War! Naruto wouldn’t be orphaned and then something had to be done about the Uchiha massacre… I could potentially save everyone. I could make a difference…

Christ, I might as well be playing god. And I had learned well enough from _Frankenstein_ that that could never end well. No one should be able to wield that much influence and power over future events. And putting that much responsibility on me? A mere mortal? A self-serving, morally questionable and chronically lazy jerkass? What in the nine circles of Dante’s Inferno were The Powers That Be thinking?!

“How the time passes,” Yoruo sighed. “Before you know it, they will be in our current position, holding their own children in their arms.”

Hiruzen smiled. “Ah, yes. I can only hope that I live to see the day when my only son will grant me a grandchild.”

Shit. I hated having a conscience.


	2. bamboo (growth)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kakashi's mother makes her first appearance and Kurenai's first birthday arrives.

Months passed and Yoruo was still battling it out in Sunagakure. Hinoiri resumed her full-time occupation at the herbarium while I was minded by disgruntled genin teams, often unaccompanied by their sensei who would ditch the D-ranks as they had better things to do. Whenever Ino-Shika-Cho came around the place, Shikaku kept his paranoid eye on me while I no longer dared to have elaborate outbursts in English again, maintaining my charade of having an infant mentality.

I also started teething. Lemme tell you, it is annoying as hell to have teeth erupting through your gums. Before I was given a toothing ring, I took any chance to grab the nearest object and start gnawing on it voraciously to soothe the irritation. My mobility also improved and I could eventually crawl. Learning to walk was a gradual and frustrating process which started with a struggle to even stand up without any support. However, after I had taken the first few steps, it didn’t take too long before I mastered the art of walking and running thereafter.

Some updates about the Third Shinobi World War reached me through eavesdropping on the many conversations of the babysitting genin teams and my mother’s visitors. Familiar names such as “Chiyo” and “Tsunade” were dropped occasionally during these conversations. Whereas the former was usually called a “poisonous bitch”, frequent praise for the latter was given as the “Slug Princess”, although I personally thought that that was a godawful and horrifically inelegant epithet.

One of my important sources of news concerning the war, however, was received through Yoruo’s letters which he sent every few weeks. My mother always read them aloud to me with great enthusiasm and I could tell when she skipped over the more depressing and graphic parts. While my father remained stationed in the northern part of Suna, fighting off ambushes and going on raiding missions, the war had become critical in Amegakure. I knew that the Sannin would become the only survivors of Hanzo’s brutal massacre and earn their aforementioned title around this time and I was glad that my father was not sent to meet his death there.

“ _Hatake Sakumo has become not only an invaluable comrade but a good friend,_ ” read Hinoiri. “ _He tells me that his wife, Minori-san, is pregnant with his first child…_ ”

I perked up at this. That was Kakashi! Holy sweet shite, that was Kakashi’s mother who was pregnant with the very Copy Ninja himself.

“Well, we’ll have to invite this Minori-san over, don’t we?” my mother smiled. “I know how she feels, going through a pregnancy with a shinobi for an absent father…”

As Hinoiri wistfully pondered over her experience, I was internally squealing at the prospect of meeting one of my favourite character’s mother who was long gone before the start of the series.

My happiness quickly faded when I realised that this was yet another addition to my mental list of people to save. I knew that Minori had died when Kakashi was very young but it was never specified exactly how and when in canon… I had no idea what to do. Constant vigilance came to mind and it seemed that it was my only option.

Hatake Minori came to visit the Yuuhi household on a Saturday afternoon. It was early summer and just over a week before my first birthday. Perennials remained in bloom from their springtime opening and the eye was treated to the sight of a verdant back garden that was awash with colour. The chirping of cicadas perched onto trees pierced the summer air as a blanket of heat covered the atmosphere.

I hated summer. My previous life’s body had been hypersensitive to heat and would break out into massive sweats during the hot season. However, it seemed as if this new body of mine was well-adjusted to the summer heat which surprisingly wasn’t too unpleasant in Konoha.

Hinoiri had dressed me in a tiny yellow dress and tied my hair up in pigtails. I pulled a grimace as she smoothed out the creases in my clothes, feeling very much like a doll for my mother’s own amusement as she fussed over me.

“Please be on your best behaviour for Hatake-san, okay?” she said.

I nodded obediently while I screamed with excitement inside.

The doorbell rang and my heart leapt. Okaasan went to greet our guest while I scrambled after her, eager to see what Kakashi’s mother looked like, someone who had never appeared in the series. Sunlight streamed through the open door and illuminated a towheaded woman with contrastingly dark brown eyes. Hatake Minori wore her hair in a spiky bob which flared outwards at the ends. I could see some resemblance from her in Kakashi in only the untamed quality of her hair. It was apparent that Kakashi had inherited Sakumo’s looks… but what about his personality?

“Yuuhi-san,” she greeted politely, bowing. “Thank you for inviting me over.”

“It was nothing,” Hinoiri dismissively waved off her formality. “And please, call me Hinoiri.”

Kakashi’s mother grinned, her demeanour immediately relaxing. “Then you can call me Minori. Formalities aren’t really my thing.”

From then on, I decided that I rather liked this woman.

“Would you like some chrysanthemum tea?” my mother asked her. “I brew it from flowers that I dry myself which are grown straight from my garden.”

“That actually sounds lovely, thank you.”

Hinoiri bustled off to the kitchen and left us alone together in the living room. I looked up at Minori with wide eyes and she stared right back at me. Blushing, I hastily averted my gaze and she laughed.

“What’s your name, kid?” Minori smiled kindly. “If you can understand me or know how to speak, that is.”

“K-Kurenai,” I squeaked shyly.

“That’s a pretty name… unlike Kakashi,” she made a face. “Sakumo has the worst taste in names. I mean, naming a child ‘scarecrow’? Really? The name’s stuck, though. Long story short, I lost a bet and so he gets to pick the name. It sucks big time.”

I stared at her blankly, pretending not to understand her.

Minori sighed and placed a hand upon her stomach. “Oh well… I’ll make sure that my son will grow up to be the best person ever to make up for his terrible name!”

Minori possessed a casually laidback yet friendly attitude. I wondered if Kakashi would have turned out more like his mother in terms of personality if he had grown up with two parents and had not been orphaned at such a young age. Kakashi as an adult had been too aloof, too afraid of forming close connections with anyone for fear of losing them as he had countless of times before. Hell, the guy even hid himself behind an erotic novel, for god’s sake. Maybe he’d be happier this time around...

If actually I did something about it.

The pregnant swell of her stomach was clearly visible through her plain, blue kimono. She caught me looking curiously at her distended middle and took hold of my hand before placing it atop the baby bump.

“That’s Kakashi-kun in there,” she said.

I had never gone anywhere near a pregnant woman before. It was surreal to think that the foetus of Hatake Kakashi was right underneath my palm.

“‘Kashi-kun…” I whispered.

Minori heard me and smiled. “Maybe it’s not such a bad name after all.”

He kicked. I squealed in surprise and retracted my hand.

“Oh! He’s kicking!” she giggled.

Hinoiri appeared from the kitchen carrying a tray of teacups and a pot.

“The baby’s kicking!” Minori exclaimed.

My mother rushed to put the tray down and kneeled down to feel Kakashi kicking around in Minori’s womb. As the two women shared a joyful moment together, I smiled and basked in the happiness myself.

I had to take what little I could get in this lifetime.

* * *

My first birthday passed without my father’s presence. It was a rather big event—courtesy of my mother who made a big deal out of it—with relatives and friends mainly gathered out in the back garden. Adult males were largely absent from the party as many were shinobi who were on active duty during the war but there were a number of prominent kunoichi missing from my quaint little birthday party. It wasn’t accustomed to being the centre of attention and it made me feel a little uncomfortable with everyone cooing at how much I’d grown and how soon enough, I’d be enrolled in the Academy and be sent on my way marching to the blood-soaked battlefield, like a lamb brought to the slaughter…

Well, they didn’t exactly put it that way but they might as well have.

The party also served as a convenient excuse for the adults to commune and discuss the status and events of the war. As such topics were unsuited to innocent little ears, in the meantime, the children were all left confined in a playpen indoors with Raidou, being the oldest, as our warden. It was amazing to see all of them as children who hadn’t yet experienced the horrors of being on active duty. Raidou and Ibiki’s faces were unscathed while Ebisu and Aoba lacked their glasses. Genma, on the other hand, was sucking on a pacifier, a substitute for his usual senbon. The guy obviously had a massive oral fixation. Asuma, my supposed love interest (gag), had the privilege of getting his own little throne-y sort of baby seat, separate from us plebeians as just one of the many perks of being the Hokage’s son.

Ebisu started to wail as Ibiki sharply pulled on his hair. I guessed that his sadistic streak was already showing. Raidou, being a good, responsible little sod, even at the age of five, promptly stepped in and pulled them apart.

“Ibiki-kun, please stop that,” he chided the baby who most likely didn’t understand.

“You shouldn’t hurt others.”

“Yay!” Ibiki shrieked gleefully. “Yay, yay!”

Oh, the irony.

Ebisu sniffled in the corner and shifted away from Ibiki, appearing to be frightened of the one year old who had attacked him out of the blue. Behold, the future head of the Torture and Interrogation Force of Konoha! Henceforth shall his victims bow down to him in fear and submission, bwahahaha!

I had coped with my inability to speak by keeping a mental running commentary of the events surrounding me to keep myself sane and entertained. Don’t judge me.

“This sucks!” Genma whined with pacifier in one hand while hammering the carpet floor with his fists.

“Yeah, I’m stuck with all you babies,” a four year old Aoba grumbled. “I didn’t even want to come to this stupid birthday party.”

Despite my love for these characters as adults in the fictional series, they were all annoying little shits as kids in reality.

“ _Hey, I take offence to that!_ ” I cried out in English.

I couldn’t help myself. I doubt they would have suspected my language abilities at such a young age unlike Shikaku who was still considered as a genius even by normal standards.

The older kids were silenced as they turned to stare at me after my outburst while Ebisu was still cowering away from Ibiki who had started to suck his thumb, looking completely innocent.

“Did she just say something?” Aoba frowned. “In baby talk?”

“ _Fuckers!_ ” I shouted cheerfully, just for the hell of it.

“Fa-ker-su?” Raidou said quizzically, hilariously mangling the English profanity with his Japanese accent.

“Stupid!” I pointed a finger at them all.

Genma returned the gesture. “No, you’re stupid!”

I suppressed the urge to fire back with the classic and ever so childish response of, “No, _you’re_ stupid,” but then I would be sacrificing my dignity as an intelligent and sentient being, so I thought better of it.

Laughing and enjoying myself immensely, I crawled over to a sleeping girl whose name I couldn’t quite place. She was napping peacefully and me, being the miscreant that I was who would dare to disturb her peaceful slumber, poked her cheek. The black-haired girl stirred in her sleep but didn’t wake so I poked her again.

“Don’t wake up Shizune-chan!” Genma scolded, being a complete goody two shoes.

Ah, so that was Shizune! She looked so adorable sleeping while curled up in foetal position, drooling slightly from the corner of her mouth.

At Genma’s voice, she jolted awake and sat up, drowsily rubbing her eyes.

“Sleepy,” she murmured, yawning.

Squealing, I threw my arms around her as my heavily repressed maternal instinct reared its disgusting head.

Shizune blinked. “Kurenai-chan?”

“You’re so cute!” I gushed, pinching her cheek playfully.

“I think she’s trying to copy some of the grown-ups,” said Aoba amusedly.

Having finished their lovely discussion out in the garden, the adults were filing in from the door. Parents picked their children up from the playpen while I was left in the dust, all alone on the floor. Hinoiri had replaced me with two large slabs of rice cake which had an individual kanji emblazoned on their each of their fronts.

“Okay everyone, it’s time for the _issho mochi_!” my mother announced.

What I had previously envisioned as a hearty gathering around my birthday mochi followed by a sweet chorus of ‘Happy Birthday’ and a cutting of the cake was, in fact, an utterly humiliating trial.

Hinoiri placed the rice cakes onto a colourful piece of cloth and began to tie it around me. Squirming, I tried to get the hell away from this crazy woman who was apparently forcing a baby to carry something on their back that was almost half their body weight. What the hell, Hinoiri?

“No, no!” I screamed. “I don’t wanna!”

“Settle down, Kurenai,” she shushed me. “This is for your own good.”

I immediately quietened as I knew she was being deadly serious when she didn’t call me ‘Kure-chan’. As soon as Hinoiri released me from her hold, the sheer weight of the rice cakes crushed me and I was left crawling on my hands and knees.

My spectators cheered me on while some of the older children jeered at me. It was one of the most embarrassing moments in my life. Imagine being scrutinised by a whole crowd of people while you pathetically struggled to even stand up on your two feet. I had managed only a couple of steps before gracefully falling flat on my ass.

“Come to Okaasan,” the evil woman who dared to call herself my mother cooed. “You can do it, Kure-chan!”

I felt like screaming at the person responsible for putting me through this horrific ordeal, “ _Why don’t_ you _try carrying a load that’s half your fucking weight, you stupid cow!_ ”

Though I didn’t. I barely had the effort to audibly express myself as I was concentrating on the shitty task ahead. Painstakingly, I crawled over to my mother’s open arms with tears running down my face. It seemed like eons before I finally reached Hinoiri before she swept me up triumphantly and the whole room erupted with applause.

“I knew you could do it!” she said as I rested my aching limbs and wiped away my tears. “May you be blessed with good health and fortune for your entire life, Kure-chan.”

Hinoiri kissed my forehead and I lay still in her arms, pondering the significance of her statement. If I were to become a kunoichi, I would probably be dead before I hit thirty as the statistics would suggest. Although I knew that canonical Kurenai was one of the lucky ones who had survived past that point as to even have a child, I didn’t exactly want to know how well I would fare. Me, a privileged little shit hailing from a cushy life in middle-class suburbia, the epitome of a safe and sheltered bourgeois bubble, entering the military… that sounded like a swell idea.

After the mochi debacle, I was placed before a set of various objects and from the expectant looks of the audience, I was to pick one of them. Ah, this game. I knew this game. Whichever object you chose signified your life’s calling. There was a shinobi headband, abacus, dictionary, a pair of chopsticks, flower and a wad of ryo bills all lined up in a row. For a split second, I thought of grabbing the money and skipping away merrily into the sunset. I sat there for a while in contemplation, as if choosing the item would actually determine my future.

“Come on, Kure-chan, pick something!” urged Hinoiri, growing tired of waiting.

Slowly, I crawled towards the dictionary and laid my hand on its cover, hoping I made the right decision. My mother smiled and nodded.

“Knowledgeable and intelligent,” she said proudly. “That’s my daughter for you.”

“I’m certain that she will still become a kunoichi,” some adult added. “It would be such a waste of potential if she didn’t.”

“Yes, Yoruo hopes so as well,” said Hinoiri. “But I would be happy with whatever Kurenai chooses to become.”

_Okaasan…_

I turned my head to look at the faces of the future generation of Konoha’s shinobi, many of which would become horrifically scarred and not just in the physical sense. Minori was grinning emphatically at me while her hands were placed upon her pregnant stomach which made my own churn with bitter guilt.

I was too much of a coward.


	3. lily (innocence)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some insight into Kurenai's parents and the Second Shinobi World War. The old InoShikaCho also babysits.

The first word that my parents heard me speak was, naturally, in a horrifically adorable and high-pitched squeal, “Kaachan!”

Hinoiri gasped and gushed, “Yes, Kurenai, I’m your Kaachan, you got it right!” and rushed over to wrap her arms around me in a snuggly embrace. She shot Yoruo a smug look and loudly declared, “She loves me more than you,” before tickling me incessantly, “Don’t you, Kure-chan? You do, don’t you?”

I giggled uncontrollably at my nerves firing off like crazy while my father crossed his arms sulkily. He looked so pathetic in that moment that I took pity on the guy and squirmed in my mother’s arms, trying to disentangle myself while holding my tiny little hands out.

“Touchan?” I put on my cutest pouty face which would have melted the hearts of even the most unfeeling of men.

Yoruo’s expression instantly split into a wide beam and he scooped me up, hugging me to his chest and softly nuzzled me with his cheek. My older conscience was evilly laughing its ass off at the sheer manipulation that my toddler self could successfully inflict upon others even without genjutsu. With my puppy dog eyes and to-die-for pout, I was invincible.

“That’s my girl,” he said softly into my hair, kissing the top of my head. “Kurenai the little genius.”

My heart swelled with pride at my father’s words of praise but my rational mind was screaming, “THEY’RE ONTO YOU.”

My first words were actually not my parents’ titles. I had merely staged that perfect little act just to indulge them because they certainly deserved it with all of the effort they put into raising me. Before that, I had been desperately trying to speak coherently on my own, in English. I was babbling to myself constantly and testing my own speech ability, taking note of the progression of my vocal folds’ development. In the early stages, I simply had no motor control over my mouth, tongue and lips and it was frustrating as fuck. Imagine not being able to vocalise yourself when your thoughts were completely intact. I felt like an aphasic brain-damaged patient who could think perfectly well and it almost made me lose my freakin’ mind.

Over time, I had gradually gained some amount of control and could manipulate a few sounds successfully which eventually came out as proper words. My speech was slow and incredibly strained at first but I began to speak fluently soon enough, much to my joy and relief that I could finally talk. Hinoiri had caught me speaking perfect English once and had simply dismissed it as gibberish.

I was only seven months old and had already said my first words according to my parents, when in reality, I had started talking at six months, having deliberately delayed revealing my newfound ability. I had no idea when developmental milestones were for infants so I was basically stumbling my way through a deception of trying not to appear as too ridiculously intelligent. It was a dangerous game to play but it was necessary for my own benefit. My life actually depended on it because I really didn’t want to be recognised as a prodigy and be forced to enrol into the force early.

“Oh my god, the time!” my mother exclaimed before taking me from Yoruo. “I’m going to show you something wonderful, Kurenai.”

Hinoiri hurriedly strode out of the backdoor of the house and into the evening air of the lush garden where her greenhouse sat outside. I had learned early on that she was not a housewife after all but was a botanist who cultivated some of her specimens in our amazing backyard which was practically a miniature botanical garden. It was extensive enough to be divided into separate sections for different flora. Multicoloured beds of flowers adorned the floor in various appropriate areas around the greenhouse and there was even a small pond to one side.

Red waterlilies protruded from their stems upon the water’s surface amongst floating lily pads. They were largely in full bloom and stood out brilliantly even in the dark. Hinoiri walked towards the pond and crouched down next to the water’s edge, holding me in her lap.

“See those flowers in the water over there?” she pointed to the waterlilies. “That’s a nymphaea but most people call them waterlilies. Now, this kind is commonly called a red flare water lily.”

There was another thing that I was grateful for about my parents; they only occasionally used baby talk when addressing me and spoke normally most of the time. They thought that it would encourage my supposedly gifted intelligence and hell, I wasn’t complaining. The fact that I could comprehend almost everything they said was something that they definitely didn’t need to know about. More advanced words still escaped my comprehension and weren’t in my known vocabulary such as the technical jargon that my mother was spouting at the moment but I could still get the gist of what she was saying.

“Red flares don’t appear in the wild. They’re cultivars, which mean that they were specifically bred to produce certain qualities. They only bloom at night, like it is right now. Aren’t they beautiful?” Hinoiri oozed with enthusiasm at her botany lesson.

Absentmindedly, I nodded in agreement. They certainly were.

“You don’t understand anything that I’m saying right now,” she said, as I inwardly snorted. “But these flowers are very special to me…”

“Kaachan?” I squeaked for good measure.

Hinoiri smiled radiantly and stood back up again. “You were named after those flowers, Kure-chan. A deep red… ‘crimson’, just like red flare water lilies. Having your father’s eyes only made the name more appropriate.”

I would remember that moment throughout the rest of my life as the faint, sweet scent of the red flares punctuated the night air while my mother held me. She pecked my forehead and we went back towards the house where my father was waiting at the door for us.

Yoruo took me into his arms and said, referring to both his wife and daughter, “I love you.”

My parents shared a loving kiss while I buried my face in his shirt, grinning like Christmas morning had arrived. I was too happy to even be embarrassed at the sight of their intimate moment.

Playing house with the Yuuhi family was a simple distraction for the many pressing issues swarming around not only in my head but many of which were grounded in the reality that was thrust upon me. Nothing like the looming presence of war shattered such an illusion of domestic bliss and innocence.

Yaruo tucked me into bed and shut the door behind him but I heard his words as clear as day.

“I’m being drafted back to Suna.”

I sat up in my cot clutching my blanket with my heart battering my ribcage. No… this can’t be what was I thought it was.

“They can’t do this!” my mother cried. “I had to go through that pregnancy alone, Yoruo! How can you leave us now? What about Kurenai? What would happen if—?”

“We both knew that this would happen sooner or later,” he cut her off bluntly. “We’re being slaughtered over there. My comrades, my _friends_ are out there, risking their lives for Konohagakure while I’m sitting here idly, doing nothing to contribute! They have their own families too, Hinoiri. I have to go back…”

I shut my eyes tightly and pulled the covers over my head, having heard enough. The Second Shinobi World War… how could I forget such a significant event?! Shit… shit, shit, shit! Suffocating underneath the sheets, I threw the covers off and gasped for air. I had to calm myself down and focus on… logic. Ah, good old logic, my reliable buddy.

It was time for some rational thinking. First of all, I knew that Yoruo was not going to die during the war, since he was alive and well during the Kyuubi attack. Now, I had put my faith in the belief that all the events in canon would most certainly occur without any intervention. This was a semi-safe assumption and only time would tell if my mere presence had altered anything in the timeline. Secondly, the war. The Sannin would rise up after being the only ones to survive Hanzo and Hatake Sakumo will kill Sasori’s parents and become even more renowned as the White Fang… what about the Ame orphans and the establishment of the Akatsuki? Nothing much would come of them if Obito and Rin survive, hopefully. It would be a cold day in hell before I allow for Rin to die and fuck up all of my plans, therefore practically dooming everyone.

Okay, so no major loss there from what we know of in the manga, aside from possible thousands in war casualties… man, I was such an asshole to pick and choose who to save but I was only one person and could only do so much from what little knowledge I had. Que sera sera and I was so going to hell, wasn’t I?

“ _What to do now…_ ” I muttered to myself in English, staring up at the bedroom ceiling. _“I have to get close to Asuma early, just for the sake of having some connection to the Sandaime… yeah, that’s right. I’ll have to get my parents to arrange some play dates with the little brat in the future. And Kakashi—_ ”

The door creaked open and I immediately shut up. Yoruo wearily approached the crib and I started to inconspicuously gurgle like any ordinary baby.

“Touchan!” I cooed, reaching out my arms.

“Kurenai,” he sighed, picking me up. “Your Otousan has to go away for a while… but I’ll be back very soon, okay?”

Stroking my hair, Yoruo kissed the side of my head. “I promise you, Kurenai. We will end this war and I will return to both you and your mother.”

Clutching his shirt tightly, I made a mental vow. _I won’t let anything happen to you, Yoruo. Not on my second goddamn life._

* * *

My father left at dawn the very next day while I was still asleep. Hinoiri, still distraught at her husband’s leave, saw this as an opportunity to throw herself back into her work at Konoha’s herbarium. Meanwhile, I was left in the care of a genin team in the form of a D-rank mission.

“You’ve met Inoichi-kun, Shikaku-kun and Chouza-kun before, haven’t you? Well, these nice shinobi are going to take care of you while I go to work, Kure-chan,” she explained. “Be good for them, okay?”

Hinoiri turned to the Inoichi and said, “Your geraniums are ready for cutting. Say hello to your mother for me, will you?”

The blond grinned in response. “Okaasan will be pleased. Thank you again, Yuuhi-san!”

Handing me to the Akimichi, my mother smiled and waved, “Bye-bye, Kure-chan! Kaa-chan will be back later today!”

Hinoiri disappeared out of the front door and I was left with a rather unimpressed team of genin.

“Aww man, I hate babysitting!” whined Inoichi. “I’m sick of these D-ranks. When can we get a real mission, huh?”

Shikaku grumbled, “I know, right? Brats are so troublesome… especially ones which tug on your hair,” he glared at me and I smiled back sweetly.

“I dunno, I think she’s kind of cute,” said Chouza, examining my tiny hand with his large fingers.

I grabbed hold of his thumb and giggled. _You shall be rewarded you for your kindness, my good sir._

“You’re such a sap, Chouza,” said Inoichi.

“Shut up.”

Inoichi moved into the garden while Shikaku lounged on the living room couch, reading a book on deer. Chouza, however, fulfilled the role of babysitter perfectly and read to me while devouring a packet of barbeque chips. **  
“** And the Silent Hurricane defeated all of the bad Amegakure ninjas with his wind jutsu,” _Munch, munch… gulp_. “He was then hailed as a hero for his determination and dedication to the village. The end!”

He shut the horrid book and smiled. “Wasn’t that a good story?”

I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. If blatant indoctrination started this early in Konoha, it was no wonder that no one lifted eyebrows at the ethical violations the Council committed. Nobody cared to even investigate the most suspicious of individuals in this village. Sick fucks like Danzo and Orochimaru who got away with their underground schemes for so long served as perfect examples of this village’s failings. Were there no ethical review boards in this universe at all?!

Chouza sighed. “You’re fun to play with, Kurenai-chan but I really wish that I were out there fighting in the war.”

Okay, that was so it. I could no longer stand the nauseating nationalism and open disregard for one’s own welfare. These were children, for reason’s sake, who were willing to throw away their lives for some corrupt regime. Fuck this shit, this was not on.

“ _You’re a stupid dumbass!”_ I spat out in English. _“You’re all brainwashed, every single one of you. Don’t you realise what they’ve done to you? They’ve turned you into child soldiers who are incapable of independent thought! Do you have no sense of self-preservation? Fucking hell, this universe makes me sick.”_

The Akimichi looked stunned. “Are you trying to talk to me in baby language?”

 _“Fuck your face, I’m speaking English, you twat! You know, a legitimate language? But no, you wouldn’t know, would you? Nobody fucking knows that I’m not from this godforsaken world and that I’m an eighteen year old…_ ” I furrowed my brow, retracting the thought. _“No, wait, a nineteen year old stuck in a pathetic little baby’s body. Yeah.”_

Shikaku had finally torn his attention away from his book and looked at me curiously.

“You’re a special little one, aren’t you?”

I growled at him, “ _Define ‘special’._ ”

The Nara boy narrowed his eyes. “I know that you can completely understand me, brat. Dumbing down is unbecoming of you.”

Pfft, as if anyone would believe him.

“Quit it, Shikaku,” chided Chouza. “You shouldn’t speak to her like that. She’s just a baby! Of course she can’t understand you!”

“Chouza,” he said flatly. “Trust me on this when I say that she is not who she appears to be,” Shikaku directed his gaze back towards me. “Why don’t you speak our language, you imposter?”

“Shikaku!” Chouza gasped.

“C’mon, why don’t you show yourself for who you really are?” my own personal interrogator snarled in my face while I made an interesting observation of his young, unscarred face. “Whose agent are you? Ame? Suna? Tell me—”

And with that, I burst out crying, screaming hysterically, “Kaa-chan! Kaa-chan!”

Chouza quickly swept me up in his arms, patting my back and frantically trying to placate my distress.

“What were you thinking?” he hissed to his teammate. “Have you completely lost your mind?”

“She was clearly talking in a foreign language! Some sort of secret code, most likely,” Shikaku protested.

Inoichi burst onto the scene in a state of panic, still wearing dirt-covered gloves while holding onto a pair of pruning shears.

“I heard screaming. What the hell happened?”

I observed the disastrous fallout with absolute glee. Now this was entertainment. The pair were ganging up on poor Shikaku who was still standing his ground.

“Do you want us to fail a freaking D-rank mission?” snarled Inoichi, looking mightily threatening while wielding the sharp gardening implement in one hand.

“I am not an idiot,” he said slowly. “Quite the opposite, actually, I’m a fucking ge—”

“Not in front of the kid!” Chouza covered my delicate little ears with his hands.

Oh, god. My insides were in stitches. This was priceless. I was shaking in Chouza’s arms, trying to contain myself before failing and breaking out into raucous laughter.

The three genin stopped arguing to stare at me incredulously.

I clapped my hands in amusement. “ _More, more, more!_ ”

Shikaku groused, “I told you she was evil.”

“You’re freaking crazy, Nara,” Inoichi rolled his eyes.  
  
Things settled down by the end of the day with Shikaku shooting me suspicious glares every so often. Hinoiri came home from work just before dinnertime to which I cried out, “Kaachan!” upon her arrival. Chouza handed me to back to my rightful place in my mother’s arms and I snuggled into her blouse, burbling softly.

“Thank you for taking care of Kure-chan, boys,” Hinoiri smiled gratefully. “I’m sure everything was fine?”

“Yep,” Inoichi piped up, lying through his teeth. “Nothing happened at all.”

“It was completely uneventful,” Chouza quickly agreed. “Kurenai-chan was very enjoyable and agreeable to look after.”

“That’s good to hear,” my mother said. “I’m looking forward to seeing you all again very soon.”

The Yamanaka held up a bucket full of freshly cut germaniums as he exited the house. “Thanks again for the flowers!”

I stuck my tongue out at Shikaku as he left through the front door and he eyed me with a look that said, “I’ll be watching you.”

It seemed as if I still had some time left for fun in this universe.


	4. olive (peace)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The quintessential summer festival + fireworks and a foreboding nightmare.

I held onto my father’s hand, taking in my surroundings as people bustled around us in happy chatter. Many were enjoying the stalls that were set up in the area for the summer festival. Yoruo looked down at me amusedly as I pranced about in my startlingly red, floral yukata that Hinoiri had appropriately picked out for me.

It had been over a year after the Second Shinobi World War had ended and Konoha had rebuilt its economy and prospered. This was clearly evident as I could feel the festivity in the air, smell the mouth-watering takoyaki and hear the sound of children’s laughter.  Colourful streamers hung on the stalls and lanterns lit up the night which complemented the celebratory atmosphere. The annual summer festival was in full swing and I had every intention of enjoying the hell out of the evening.

My father led me to Hinoiri’s stall where she was selling potted plants and cut flowers to raise funds for botanical research. My mother waved at us cheerfully as we approached, dressed in a deep purple and naturally floral yukata with a flower-shaped obi. Her outfit was complete with irises adorning her stylish bun. It hadn’t taken long before I realised that my mother took a great delight in dressing up whenever possible for special occasions and had enthusiastically included her daughter in such dalliances, to my great dismay.

“Kure-chan, come here,” she ushered me behind the counter.

Plucking a crimson rose from one of the buckets, Hinoiri cut the stem short and tucked the de-thorned flower behind my ear.

“Ooh, you look perfect!” she gushed.

Yoruo attempted to stifle his snickers unsuccessfully, knowing that I held a great distaste for such trifles. No matter how much I looked to him in distress with pleading, puppy dog eyes, the bastard remained unmovably silent and remarked about how adorable and pretty I looked just to appease Hinoiri.

The sound of light chuckling reached my ears and I spun around to the source of the sound.

“Nice outfit, Kurenai-chan,” a blond teenager grinned at me.

Yamanaka Inoichi’s hair had grown even longer than I’d last seen him and he was wearing a dark green apron over his standard ninja outfit.

“Inoichi-kun is helping out?” I deliberately asked in the third person with the upkeep of a less than mature vocabulary.

Although obviously, everyone was still aware that I was a smart cookie for two going on three. It was still a bitch to tiptoe around that.

“Yep, I volunteered along with some other members of my clan. It’s for a good cause, right?”

“It certainly is,” Hinoiri smiled appreciatively at the boy and continued to arrange her bouquet.

Aside from intelligence gathering and espionage, the Yamanaka clan also invested in botanical matters, apparent from their florist in Konoha. It seemed as if the trio of shinobi clans held some influence in civilian sectors, such as the Naras with deer farming and the Akamichis with the culinary field. I had built some sort of friendly acquaintance with the young Yamanaka heir while he ran errands for his clan’s flower shop which often included Hinoiri as one of their connections. He still treated me like a baby just like everyone else, though, which was something that never failed to grate on my nerves.

“What do you want to do, Kurenai?” my father asked me.

I looked around the stalls and the shaved ice stall instantly caught my eye. Yoruo looked at me knowingly and grasped my hand again.

“Kakigouri it is.”

“Bye Okaachan, Inoichi-kun!” I waved.

“Have fun now, sweetie!” Hinoiri called back.

The Yamanaka waved back as I scrambled ahead of Yoruo, dragging him towards the frozen treats.

After acquiring my strawberry flavoured kakigouri and happily spooning it into my mouth, I decided to take a tour of the game stalls. Most of them had large, clear notices banning any trained ninja from participating in the games. They had an unfair advantage, understandably. Most of the players were small children accompanied by a guardian who looked on. They had all of the typical Japanese festival games I’d seen in anime and manga such as goldfish scooping, ring toss, some sort of lucky dip lottery and other various games but one of them piqued my attention in particular.

What at first glance appeared to be an innocuous stall hosting an ordinary game of balloon popping by throwing darts actually turned out to be small children throwing shuriken… that’s right, I saw it! I saw it with my own undeceiving eyes! I saw children under the age of ten handling razor sharp weaponry which could easily slice off those tiny, itty bitty fingers!

…and then I remembered that I lived in a universe where toddlers were sent out to war.

With a morbid curiosity, I tugged on Yoruo’s sleeve and pointed to the stall containing shiny, sharp and pointy things.

“I wanna play that game, Touchan.”

My father stared at the worryingly dangerous stall and looked back to me. I could only hope that he was mulling over his decision of allowing his young two year old child to participate in such a ridiculously hazardous activity.

Being sound of mind and a good parent, of course, he said, “Alright.”

…what.

“I guess we can call this early training.”

Yoruo grinned and patted my head. “I wouldn’t have allowed this if you weren’t so mature and capable of yourself.”

_You’re still letting a toddler play with what essentially is a weapon used to kill people but we all live in a crazyass universe so, like, whatever._

At the stall, some familiar, young faces were crowded behind the counter, cheering on their friend who was stationed at the front, all while there were successive noises of balloons popping in the background. My father paid the guy at the counter next to the game area and away from any stray shuriken and we stood apart from the crowd, waiting for our turn.

“I’m gonna beat you this time, Raidou!” a determined Aoba declared. “That ninja headband is mine!”

The prizes on display consisted of many miniature imitations of actual ninja equipment that could be used to play dress-up. There were plastic kunai and shuriken, fake Konoha headbands and even child-sized flak jackets. To be frank, I was appalled.

Nothin’ like child indoctrination deserved a good ol’ massive eyeroll.

On closer inspection, I noticed that the bases of the shuriken were actually covered with a sort of light silicone rubber. It alleviated some amount of the hazard, reducing the area of the blade while also adding a good grip to the shuriken. The designer of this game obviously had fantastic forethought, of course.

Finally, after collective groans at Aoba’s pitiful loss, the crowd of boys parted to make way for Yoruo and I, all the while staring at the pathetic image of my miniscule two year old self tottering up to the counter which came up to above my waistline.

“You’re kidding me, right?” snorted Genma, glaring at me dismissively.

Gone was the pacifier which was replaced by a lollipop but the jerkassery, unfortunately, was still there.

Not taking any of his shit again, I cried, “Idiot!” and gave him a hard shove.

“No, you!” the little asswipe shrieked and returned the lovely gesture.

Yoruo, horrified, stepped in-between our pre-schoolyard scuffle like the responsible adult he was… naturally.

“Stop it this instant!” he growled, exercising his adult authority and looking mighty scary to a toddler.

Visibly shaken, Genma shrank back and whimpered. I, on the other hand, remained defiant and stood my ground against my father. The frustration of being stuck in my helpless and useless body and playing the tiresome part of an innocent child came to a boiling point as I sorely wished that I could kick that little bastard’s ass.

“But he’s always being mean to me!” I huffed, stamping the ground angrily with one foot.

“That does not mean that you can call him disrespectful names and physically attack him,” he intoned, voice laced with steel.

“I don’t care! _I can do whatever the fuck I want to, old man!_ ”

In my fury, I had unknowingly slipped back into my mother tongue. The boys around me gasped at my brazenness while my father looked to be on the verge of snapping.

“Yuuhi Kurenai, you will listen to your Otousan.”

Pushing my boundaries and with an affirmative, “NO!” I grabbed one of the shuriken from the countertop just to prove my stance and idiotically, in my careless stupor, sliced my little hand right open.

Reflexively dropping the evil and pointy object, blood began to pour from the numerous gashes in my palm.

“KURENAI!”

All of the anger instantly melted from my father’s expression to as he rushed to pick me up. Frozen in shock and staring incredulously at my bloody appendage, the pain suddenly kicked in and I started to cry like a little girl.

“What has gotten into you?!” Yoruo bellowed, rushing me away from the stall.

“T-touchan, I’m s-sor-sorry!” I sobbed.

Performing the impressive feat of one singlehanded seal, Yoruo successfully body flickered away in a haze of smoke with my bawling self in his arms. I felt my body jerk forwards with a sharp tug before seeming to teleport in front of what appeared to be a medical tent.

A medical-nin immediately rushed to my aid at the sound of my infantile cries.

“Goodness, what happened?”

“Careless accident at the shuriken throwing game,” Yoruo sighed, placing me down on one of the seats.

“I’ve been telling them time and time again that they should shut that horrible game down,” she clucked in disapproval. “The amount of injuries that come through here from that game…”

Hushing me gently, my sobs were reduced to sniffles as the medical-nin expertly examined my wounds, wiped away the excess blood and made all of my booboos go away in a magical green light… but seriously, it was awesome. As a first-time witness of instantaneous healing in action, I couldn’t help but be in complete awe of the event.

I couldn’t believe how amazing chakra really was.

“There,” she cooed, patting my shoulder. “All better now.”

I gaped in amazement at my intact hand, wriggling my fingers experimentally.

“Thank you very much,” I breathed, still in disbelief.

“You’re very welcome, dear.”

It wasn’t long before another patient burst into the tent in a worried frenzy. The legendary White Fang, Hatake Sakumo, stood right in front of me in a fragile state of panic while carrying an unconscious Minori in bridal style with a one year old Kakashi desperately clinging onto his back.

“My wife just suddenly collapsed!” Sakumo panted.

This day just could not get any more eventful.

“Put her down on one of the stretchers, please, Hatake-sama,” instructed the medical-nin professionally.

The silver-haired shinobi legend carefully laid his wife down before transferring the baby Kakashi into his arms. Sitting down in a weary slump, he distractedly ran his fingers through his son’s similarly coloured locks while anxiously looking at Minori. Kakashi simply whimpered into his father’s shirt.

“Sakumo-san…?” Yoruo tentatively addressed him.

“Yoruo-san,” he sighed. “What are you doing here?”

“Kurenai just had a little accident,” my father replied. “What happened?”  
“She said she started to feel dizzy before struggling with her speech and then she just suddenly fainted…” Sakumo rambled. “Oh, God, this can’t be happening…”

In that moment, Kakashi began to cry.

Looking even more frazzled, the shinobi desperately tried to placate the distraught infant. “Shh, Kakashi-chan, everything will be okay…”

I stared at the scene before me with the powerful White Fang reduced to a nervous wreck. It was startlingly chilling as the medical-nin performed her diagnostic jutsu over Minori’s still body while a tense silence hung in the air.

“As I suspected, Hatake-san has suffered a stroke,” she determined gravely. “We must get her to the hospital immediately.”

The medical-nin hurried outside, calling for assistance.

Sakumo dropped down onto his knees in front of Minori with Kakashi in his lap.

“Minori… please be okay.”

I tore my eyes away, unable to stand breaching the extreme privacy of the moment.

“I apologise for having you witness this, Yoruo-san, Kurenai-chan,” he hung his head.

“You don’t need to apologise,” said Yoruo. “This is a completely understandable situation.”

A pair of Uchiha policemen appeared at the tent’s entrance followed by the medical-nin. Promptly lifting the stretcher, the law enforcers and disappeared in the blink of an eye. The kunoichi gestured for Sakumo to accompany her to the hospital. He picked up Kakashi again, nodded a grave goodbye to Yoruo and I before he vanished in a swirl of leaves along with the medical-nin.

“I hope that all goes well with Minori-san,” my father murmured.

The sound of fireworks exploded in the distance, clashing with the melancholy atmosphere. Yoruo and I stood side-by-side in the tent opening, looking up towards the sky as it burst into colourful explosions of sparks. My father clutched onto my hand and squeezed it reassuringly for both his sake and my own.

I held the very same hope but I was disturbed by an unsettling feeling seeping into my stomach.

_“Now I can move in peace. And finally see your mother…”_

Something terrible was about to happen and I was at a complete loss as to how to stop it.

* * *

“ _Kurenai… Kurenai, wake up…_ ” a gravelly voice whispered.

The comforting, familiar phonetics of my mother tongue made me smile in my half-conscious state.

“Nooo, let me sleep…” I whined childishly, burying my face deeper into the pillow.

“Kurenai, you have to wake up!”

Groaning, I pried my eyes open and was met with the bearded face of an adult Sarutobi Asuma. I looked down at my own adult body and let out a shriek of surprise, burrowing my head under the covers to hide.

“This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening…” I mumbled, shutting my eyes tightly.

My makeshift safe haven quickly disappeared as the covers were thrown back. In a rude bitchslap to this so-called “reality”, the cold morning air washed over my bare skin and I let out a shocked yelp. Asuma stood beside the bed with his arms crossed, arching an eyebrow.

“What the hell are you doing? Don’t you know what day it is?”

Blinking, I slowed my racing thoughts to ponder for a moment… and then noticed the unmistakably pregnant bulge of my stomach.

My natural reaction was to scream. I screamed and screamed and then, I screamed some more.

“What the hell, Kurenai?!” Asuma shouted over my abject horror.

“This. Cannot. Be. Happening.”

This was my worst nightmare, my worst fear manifesting itself into some twisted hallucination, oh god, oh god, fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck!

Breathing heavily, I dashed out of the room, ignoring the apparent bearer of my parasitic hellspawn and onto the busy streets outside. Identical black, sleek modern era vehicles whizzed past the roads and I stood rooted on the pavement, not believing my eyes.

“This must be a dream…” I murmured to myself.

I raised a hand and gave a sound smack to my own face. The pain smarted on contact but an unresponsive numbness carpeted over my mind.

“This isn’t a dream, Kurenai,” the adult-sized Asuma appeared.

On second glance, he appeared… unsettling. There was something almost inhuman in his visage, something that stirred an inherent fear response within me as my heart began to race. I felt the contractions of my central organ pound in my ears, almost as if the sensation of the blood circulating in my body was felt tangibly. My throat seemed to constrict as each inhalation became shorter, more strainedwith each desperate, heaving breath.

“What is this?” I gasped, clutching at my chest.

“This is your dying day, Kurenai.”

The false apparition of Asuma began to advance towards me, almost gliding on his feet. I backed away closer to the curb of the sidewalk, wrenching out choking breaths from my rapidly deteriorating lungs.

“No, stop… please, don’t do this!” I begged, tears streaming down my face. “I don’t deserve to die!”

The phantom grabbed hold of my arm, painfully squeezing it a vicelike grip.

“ _They_ didn’t deserve to die,” he pointed to the duplicate cars roaming the streets.

My eyes widened in horrified realisation. The outlines of coffins were visible through the tinted windows… they were all hearses.

Asuma roughly grabbed my other arm and forced me to face his hollow eyes.

“You, on the other hand…”

Without a second thought, I was shoved onto the middle of the busy road, right into incoming traffic. There was no time for me to react at all. The sound of the car’s horn blared in front of me as I shut my eyes in anticipation of an agonising, sickening crunch…

_“Kure-chan!”_

I jolted awake.

Hinoiri was looking at me with her customary motherly concern. I noticed a redness and despondency tinging her normally clear and kind eyes and immediately suspected that something was wrong. Wrapping her arms around me, my mother lifted me from the cot and patted my back consolingly.

“Shh, it was only a nightmare, sweetie… it wasn’t real, okay? You’re safe now…”

Only then did I feel the wetness on my face and I buried my head in her chest, hiccoughing softly as I cried.

After my tears finally dried up, Hinoiri sighed deeply and began to stroke my hair.

“Okaasan is very sad right now,” she whispered, voice almost breaking.

She couldn’t even bear to face me as she continued to speak.

“Sometimes, people go away and never come back… new people are born in their place. This is just how life is, Kurenai.”

I gripped onto her sleeve, trembling and shaking my head.

“ _No,_ ” I thought despairingly, gritting my teeth. “ _It’s all just meaningless._ ”

Grief swelled up in my chest as I predicted the worst. I didn’t want to hear it, I didn’t want my fears to be confirmed, for my nightmare to become a reality...

“Minori-san passed away this morning,” a sob escaped Hinoiri’s mouth and she held onto me tighter, as if I were her lifeline preventing her from shuffling off the mortal coil as well. “I’m so sorry! I shouldn’t be telling you this, it’s not like you even understand!”

“Kaachan…” I whispered, closing my burning eyes. “ _I understand._ ”

Hot tears scalded my back as my mother grieved for the loss of her friend.

“She’s gone away and she’s never coming back… she’s dead, Kurenai.”


	5. apple (knowledge)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurenai deals with Minori's death and meets another familiar character.

Hatake Minori’s funeral service was a private one, reserved for family and close friends only. My parents went without taking me for fear of exposing their child to such a miserable environment, of which I was grateful for. I had never attended a funeral before and I did not intend on starting the trend prematurely, as I knew that I was in for a whole slew of deaths in the future.

It was, however, the first time that someone I knew personally and someone that I’d interacted with frequently had died.

I never thought much about Minori’s predestined death, even though it was foreknowledge that I possessed. As an infant, I had become too accustomed to playing house and basking in the safe, sunny atmosphere that my parents had constructed for me. It seemed as if I had no responsibilities while I was reliving a second childhood and I shirked the darkness that lurked in the back of my mind.

Now, it was being shoved right in front of my face as an unwanted reminder of the hefty weight that was on my shoulders. One that I had been desperately trying to ignore as I tried to live a somewhat normal life.

“ _It’s not my fault… it couldn’t possibly have been predicted or prevented. Nothing could have been done, abso-fucking-lutely nothing. It’s not my freakin’ fault.”_

My whispers were lost among the sound of the electric fan’s swing and the din of cicadas chirping in the summer heat outside. Inoichi was slumped on the couch, reading a novel on criminal psychology while babysitting me. The remaining two of the fabulous trio were absent as this was yet another errand and favour my mother had requested of the Yamanaka heir. I sat listlessly beside him, gazing off into the distance.

My attentive babysitter, upon noticing my glum mood, nudged me gently.

“You’re awfully quiet today, Kurenai-chan.”

I diverted my attention to the blond who wore a look of concern. Yet another name to pencil down on my ‘To Die’ list.

“Minori-san’s dead,” I said bluntly. “And that’s bad.”

Inoichi was stunned to silence at the grave words coming from a two year old’s mouth before recollecting himself.

“Do you know what that means?” he asked gently.

Sighing in annoyance, I made the crude gesture of a finger slitting across my throat and added a choking sound for good effect.

“She’s gone forever,” I reiterated glumly.

He looked to be very disturbed at my actions. Inoichi was clearly thinking that I was reacting in an unusually callous manner and was incredibly perceptive for a toddler but I just couldn’t give two shits for appearances as of that moment. I was sick and tired of this entire charade and all I wanted to do was crawl under a rock, hide from this universe’s crazy shenanigans and live on fast internet access.

Oh, how I missed the internet.

“Where did you learn that?” Inoichi frowned, clearly disapproving of an infant’s exposure to such inappropriate things.

“Ninjas.”

My pants were ablaze but the teenager neither noticed the flames nor smelled the smoke. Being an innocent little child who didn’t know better really helped with that.

“They’ve really slackened the passing requirements for genin, haven’t they?” he grumbled.

Silence. From the facial expressions that he was making, it was apparent that Inoichi was fumbling around in his mind to figure out what to say next to an overly impressionable toddler. Coming to a conclusion, he abruptly snapped his book shut and placed it on the arm of the couch before turning to face me properly.

“Are you sad?” he asked quietly. “About Hatake-san?”

I nodded despondently, avoiding his gaze by looking down at my feet.

“She was nice to me…”

Hatake Minori was a good person. My mother would often bring me on their visits and outings together while Minori was on maternity leave from her shinobi duty. She didn’t address me in a disgustingly condescending tone unlike other adults and would speak to me in a casual, conversational manner. I’d even learned a few swear words from her infrequent slip-ups which luckily happened whenever Hinoiri was out of earshot.

Sighing, Inoichi pulled me up on his lap and placed a hand atop my head consolingly.

“You’re too young for this,” he murmured. “And too damn smart for your own good.”

I stared up at his wistful face, wondering how many people he’s had killed by his own hand and how many he had seen die in front of his very eyes… all at the tender age of fourteen.

“Inoichi-nii,” I said slowly, experimentally trying the words on for size. “How’s being ninja?”

The corners of his mouth quirked up amusedly at my affectionate title for him and he ruffled my hair.

“It’s an honour to serve Konoha, Kurenai-chan. I know that I’m helping a lot of people and the village itself. I’ve saved a few lives too, along the way. It feels like… like I’m making a difference. Like I’m doing some good.”

The cynical part of me wanted to roll its eyes at Inoichi’s quixotic patriotism and how he must have taken a few lives in exchange for others’. The more tactful and sympathetic part of me, however, understood his sentiment from another’s perspective.

Meeting at the middle in a neutral conclusion, I thought, “Good for him,” but also, “Sooo not my thing.” There must be some other way that I could fuck with canon without becoming a ninja… although I would be sacrificing the totally awesome superpowers that came with the job description.

How superficial of me.

“Is there bad stuff?”

Inoichi looked at me with an unreadable expression. I stared back with wide, unblinking eyes filled with a childlike curiosity.

“Yes. But let’s not talk about that just right now, okay?”

I pouted. “Then when?”

“Later,” he said dismissively. “When you’re older, maybe.”

_If only you knew that I’m older than you, kiddo._

“How old?”

“When you’re old enough to be thinking of becoming a ninja, I’ll tell you everything. All the good and the bad things that come with being one.”

“Promise?” I held out my pinky finger.

Inoichi grinned and decided to entertain my childish whims, entwining his own around my tiny digit.

“I promise.”

* * *

The first thought that manifested itself in my rather screwed up mind when my mother told me that she was taking me to the hot springs was, “I’m gonna be seeing a whole bunch of naked old women.” In light of this awkward cultural difference where in such a circumstance, nudity was really not that big of a deal to everyone else but me, I whined and whined until Hinoiri relented and allowed me to wear a flowery one-piece swimsuit. As garish as I looked in my awful get-up, I thanked The Powers That Be for small mercies.

“Be careful. The water might be just a little too hot for you, Kure-chan,” said Hinoiri. “The pool’s also a bit deep. You can just sit by the side of the onsen, okay?”

She slipped into the steaming pool and sighed in relaxation. Taking a few small steps closer towards the edge of the hot springs, I gingerly dipped a toe in the water before jerking away with a pained yelp. I looked at Hinoiri incredulously as she bathed languidly in the water with her eyes closed. How the hell could she stand being boiled alive?!

I sat down on the stone-tiled floor and shuffled forward. I shut my eyes tightly, sucking in a breath before slowly submerging my toes in the springs, gritting my teeth and letting the burning pain seep through delicate, baby’s skin and engulf my feet. The scalding gradually petered out into an achingly soothing sensation, similar to the feeling of a vigorous foot massage. Hinoiri cracked an eye open and smiled at me, laughing softly at her own daughter’s predicament.

Heinous woman.

Letting out the breath that I was holding, I stared down at the water and lazily kicked my feet around underneath. The thick steam emanating from the surface of the onsen filled my lungs as perspiration oozed from the pores of my skin. I could never stand being in saunas for longer than a few minutes back in my first life but this overall experience was pleasant, somehow.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” sighed Hinoiri. “I used to come here with Minori-san all the time…”

At the mention of her name, the air seemed to instantly drop a few degrees, as miraculous as it sounds.

_Way to ruin the mood, Kaachan._

While I was left stewing with dreary thoughts, a sudden moving shape behind the surrounding fence caught my eye. Squinting, I observed the spot with suspicion, noting any further movements.A shriek almost tore itself from my throat when I spotted an eye peek itself through the gaps of the wooden fence.

_No fuckin’ way. Is that who I think it is…?_

I whipped my head towards my mother before settling a hard glare on the peeping tom. Nobody perves on my mother and gets away with it without an earful or a fist to the face.

“Kaachan, toilet,” I said, scrambling up from the poolside.

I shuddered at the sudden blast of cold air around my feet. Not even the surrounding blanket of steam warmed them quickly enough.

“Do you need me to go with you?” Hinoiri asked.

I huffed, “No, I’m big enough.”

The old squat toilets sure compensated for a toddler’s height.

Smiling knowingly, she waved me away and I hurried to the change room, wrapping a fluffy towel around myself before charging outside to meet the culprit. Sure enough, the person who I was expecting to see was kneeling down with his face pressed to the side of the fence. A wild mane of white hair fell down to just below his shoulders which shook with his every depraved giggle.

“Pervert!” I shrieked, pointing an accusing finger at him.

The man unglued his face from the peephole and stood up, towering over me with his overwhelming height. I was struck by his youthful appearance, having been acquainted with his older self far too well. He must have been in his mid-twenties and looked to be no less than twenty-five.

“Do you know who you’re talking to, little girl?” he growled, crossing his arms to adopt a position of what he must have thought to be intimidating.

“Ero-sennin!”

He reeled back, startled at this phrase to have come tumbling out from the mouths of babes. Quickly recovering, he composed himself once again.

“That’s Jiraiya-sama to you,” he sniffed petulantly. “How does a baby like you know such  naughty words like that?”

Mirroring his stance, I crossed my own little arms and glowered at him threateningly.

“I’m not a baby.”

The Sannin snorted. “Right and I’m not an awesome legend.”

Ugh, such arrogance. “Stop perving on my mother!”

“She’s valuable research for my writing!” Jiraiya protested. “It’s not my fault that your mum’s a total babe.”

“You’re not allowed to speak about her in that way, asshole,” I hissed.

His jaw dropped at my vulgar words. “What are you, some kind of precocious genius?”

“Something like that,” I snarled. “Awesome legend, my ass. You’re just some kind of sad, perverted bastard.”

“You must be under a henge,” he frowned, ignoring my previous insult. “There’s no way that someone like you can exist.”

“Well, you better believe it, old man,” I sneered. “And don’t even think about putting me under a mind jutsu. The Yamanaka would never even think about doing that to a two year old, especially not a Yuuhi.”

I barely saw the hand seals before I was literally put in a bind. Chakra ropes wrapped themselves tightly around my entire body, completely restricting my movement. I wriggled around helplessly in my entrapment to no avail.

“You better talk fast, brat,” he tightened the bind around me. “’Cause I’m sure as hell not a Yamanaka. Who and what the hell are you?”

“Kurenai!” the familiar call of my mother shattered the tense atmosphere.

Jiraiya immediately dispelled the jutsu and released his hold on me. My mother came running frantically onto the scene, dressed in a post-bathing yukata. At the sight of a famed war hero, she instantly changed her tone.

“Sannin-sama,” she breathed reverently. “Is my daughter giving you any trouble?”

Rubbing my sore forearm from the chakra ropes, I was flabbergasted. That bitch! Was she really siding with this pervert over her own flesh and blood?

“No, not at all,” the Toad Sage purred. “Please, call me Jiraiya and spare me the fancy honorifics. I’m the one who is privileged to be in the presence of such a…” he gave Hinoiri the ol’ up and down. “Beautiful woman.”

Flushing, my mother had the gall to giggle madly as I stood there with my mouth agape, not believing the sight in front of me.

“Pervert!” I cried, pointing a finger at Jiraiya.

Hinoiri looked positively scandalised. “Kurenai!” she scolded me sharply. “I am so sorry for my daughter’s rude behaviour, Jiraiya-san.”

“That’s alright. Kids will be kids,” he said airily. “But I have to say, that is one little genius you’ve brought up, there.”

 The Sannin looked at me pointedly with a watchful eye that went unnoticed by my mother under his praise.

“Oh, stop it, you’re flattering me far too much,” Hinoiri preened.

“You must invite me to dinner sometime,” he grinned suavely. “To discuss your daughter’s future prospects, of course. You are considering the path of a kunoichi for her, aren’t you?”

Shit. The cat would have come crawling out of the bag sooner or later.

Hinoiri’s expression darkened. “Only if Kurenai-chan decides to be when she’s older,” she answered resolutely.

My love for this woman suddenly grew exponentially. My mother would always have my back, after all.

“Still, with her brilliance on board Konoha’s forces, she’d be an invaluable asset.”

Hinoiri grasped hold of my hand and gripped it firmly. “We should discuss such matters at dinner, Jiraiya-san,” she smiled tightly.

He returned the gesture. “Certainly.”

I was so screwed.

* * *

To absolve myself of this daunting feeling that was slowly consuming me, I threw myself into my musings. Pacing around my bedroom, I raced through the thoughts in my mind. I needed a plan and fast. Jiraiya was onto me, thanks to my humongous slip-up… but maybe that didn’t need to be a bad thing. It would be handy to have a useful ally to back me up on this canon fuckery, someone who held a lot of influence… and Jiraiya would be perfect for that role.

I got out my drawing pad filled with my juvenile scribbles and failed attempts at writing Japanese. Flipping to a fresh blank page, I paused and tapped my pencil in contemplation.

Could I really save people’s lives?

The White Fang was an important asset not only to the Konoha military but to Kakashi’s mental welfare and my own plans. I couldn’t let Kakashi turn into a rule-abiding little prick with a stick up his ass like he was in canon. In fact, it could be said that the fate of the Naruto universe depended on his attitude. Maybe, if he were a little more cooperative with Team Minato, he wouldn’t abandon Rin on that pivotal mission. Obito then wouldn’t have his pseudo-death and be scouted by Madara and become hell-bent on world domination…

Obito’s transformation into the Big Bad of this universe _had_ to be prevented. It would stop the chain of shitty events that would follow in his footsteps which would leave Madara as the remaining threat. With Obito out of the picture, would he form some other incarnation of the Akatsuki? Would the Kyuubi attack still occur? Orochimaru and Danzo were my opponent’s other wild cards, so to speak. It was imperative that something was to be done about these crazy kids in the future.

“Kurenai!” my father called. “Come out here!”

In my almost illegible cursive handwriting, I quickly drafted a rough timeline of the major events that I had the ability to manipulate, in English, of course. First, was Sakumo’s suicide. There was no way that I could predict when and which mission was the one that would turn him into a village pariah but I could somehow control the fallout and have Sakumo seek therapy, maybe have him be put on suicide watch.

Speaking of therapy, where the hell were all of the clinical psychologists in this universe? Surely, at least Konoha, the “friendly” Hidden Village of these fucked up nations would offer readily available psychological assistance for ninjas?

Judging from the series, apparently not.

I was still relying on the canon timeline for everything to occur as it should, though. As far as I was concerned, things were playing out as they should have been.

“Kurenai?”

The sounds of Yoruo’s approaching footsteps reached my ears and I hastily shut my drawing pad, tossing it in the nearest drawer and slamming it shut. Jumping into bed and shuffling underneath the covers, I feigned sleep as the door of my bedroom swung open.

“Wake up,” my father nudged me gently. “Someone’s here to see you.”

Yawning, I blinked my eyes open and got up.

“Who?”

Yoruo smiled. “You’ll see when you get there.”

I inwardly gulped. _Jiraiya. It must be that bastard._

My father tried to gather me in his arms but I pushed him away, insisting that I was old enough to walk by myself. I stormed out of the door and into the living room where my mother was entertaining our unpleasant guest, carrying her usual tea tray.

At my entrance, Jiraiya flashed a shit-eating grin.

“Hello there, Kurenai-chan.”

_Translation: “I’m eager to groom you into my prophecy-fulfilling, perfect little ninja.”_

I glared at him silently, refusing to address the man.

“Don’t be so rude, Kurenai,” Yoruo chided me from behind.

With my father breathing down my neck, I stared the supposed legend down, smirking before slipping into my good little girl façade.

“Hello, Jiraiya-sama. It’s nice to see you again.”

Two can play at this game.


	6. alstroemeria (dedication)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jiraiya gets a bombshell dropped on him and Kurenai finds her library study disrupted by a certain someone.  
> \+ omake: letter

“So there I was, facing off an entire army of Suna nin with razor-sharp blades of wind jutsu coming right at me from all directions…”

Dinner was an awful affair. Jiraiya was regaling my parents with war stories, boasting about his conquests while my father took yet another generous gulp of sake, nodding along to appease the perverted sage. At long last and with additional sound effects, the jerkass finished his tall tale and downed his sake cup in one go.

“Now, getting to the reason I came here,” said Jiraiya, clutching his empty cup in an outstretched hand.

My father looked relieved and only slightly tipsy. “Ah yes, to discuss my daughter’s prospects?”

“She has great potential. I believe that she will make a fine kunoichi.”

“As do I, Jiraiya-sama,” said Yoruo. “I’m glad you see as I do.”

“Wait, doesn’t Kurenai have any say in this?” Hinoiri cut in. “She’s only a child. She hasn’t even displayed any chakra abilities!”

“How old is she?” the Sannin asked.

“Almost three years old.”

“Well then, with a bit of training from such a great sensei like me, she’ll master the academy jutsu in no time with such a genius intellect.”

“ _Stop talking like I’m not sitting right here,_ ” I muttered under my breath, poking a morsel of boiled mackerel with my chopsticks.

“What was that, Kurenai-chan?” Jiraiya piped up brightly.

“Nothing, Jiraiya-sama,” I smiled sweetly in return.

The sage abruptly stood up from the dinner table. “I need to speak to your daughter alone,” he said. “To gauge her opinion on all of this.”

“Thank you,” Hinoiri sighed. “But I still think that she’s too young to decide.”

“You underestimate your daughter’s intelligence. Come along now, Kurenai-chan.”

With a carefully controlled expression in front of my parents, I plopped down from my seat and followed him obediently to the back garden. The cool evening air nipped at my bare skin, making me shiver in my summer clothes. Jiraiya took a seat in one of the chairs on the porch and gestured to the empty one across from him.

“Take a seat,” he invited. “We have much to discuss.”

Self-consciously, I attempted to climb onto the chair but was encumbered by my lack of height. It was freaking humiliating as Jiraiya watched in amusement as I struggled to reach the seat.

Giving up, I growled, “Are you going to help me up or what?”

Snickering, he hoisted me up onto the chair.

I crossed my arms. “So, what do you want to know?”

Jiraiya produced a paper seal from his kimono pockets and slapped it onto the sliding door while making a hand seal. The painted kanji activated with a blue glow.

“Just a little soundproofing,” he remarked dryly. “Wouldn’t want anyone to overhear us now, do we?”

Sitting back in his seat, the Sannin rested a foot on his knee, slumping backwards with his hands resting casually on the sidearms.

“So tell me, who are you? Better question, what are you?”

I sighed, preparing myself for a very long talk. There was no point in lying now. With the whole prophecy thing, I figured that my situation would be just that little bit more credible to the Toad Sage.

“I’m not from this world.”

“I figured it was something crazy like that,” he snorted without an ounce of surprise on his face.

“Long story short, I died,” I said bluntly. “And then I wake up and find myself having just been born into this new body.”

“Reincarnation, eh? Well, I’ve heard more unbelievable things.”

“Not only that… and I know what’s going to happen in the future.”

Jiraiya laughed, “And a seer too? Oh, this just keeps getting better and better.”

“No, no, no,” I waved his statement away. “This whole place is a manga.”

I explained almost everything to him. The Sannin simply sat there during my very longwinded talk with facial expressions ranging from pure shock, amusement and seething anger.

“Orochimaru does _what_?!” Jiraiya thundered.

“Baaasically, he goes evil in the search for _immortality_ and starts cutting people up, gets found out, becomes a missing-nin and a whole bunch of other crap.”

“Wait, the search for…?”

“Err,” I rifled through my mind for the correct phrasing in Japanese. “To live forever.”

“Immortality,” the Sannin sat back in his chair, looking grave.

I snapped my fingers. “That’s the word!”

Jiraiya covered his face with one hand, shaking his head in disbelief.

“I never thought... I mean, I always knew that the guy was a little strange but to think that he’d do something like this?”

Shrugging, I fiddled with a loose thread in my sleeve. “You think you know someone…”

“And Madara is still alive?”

I nodded. “I kind of stopped following the manga after a while so I don’t know what happens in the very latest volumes but yeah, he’s still alive.”

He stood up from this seat and started to frantically pace around the veranda, mind clearly racing. I didn’t blame the guy. I mean, I’d just dropped a bombshell on him and ripped apart the fabric of his entire reality, tearing it into unsalvageable shreds. Hell, I was already taking a huge gamble on telling Jiraiya my predicament and he was taking it on the chin pretty well, so far.

“This is insane!”

“You can look into my mind and see for yourself that I’m not making this up!” I protested.

An aggrieved sound rumbled up from his throat. “Didn’t we already go through the fact that I’m not a Yamanaka?”

“But… but you’re one of the legendary Sannin!” I spluttered. “Can’t you just do some awesome mind jutsu and look into my memories or something?”

“No!” Jiraiya scowled. “I’m not a fucking mind penetration specialist, okay?”

I watched as the mighty war hero and famed ninja admitted to one of his shortcomings, muttering something unintelligible to himself while turning his head away embarrassedly.

“But isn’t that a useful thing to know?” I frowned.

“It’s not like I know a million jutsu or something!”

_Well, Kakashi comes close at a thousand._

“Do you even know any medical jutsu?”

Jiraiya turned red. “I… I leave that kind of thing to Tsunade,” he said in a tiny voice.

“Waaait,” a smirk crept onto my face. “Don’t tell me that the great Jiraiya-sama, the Toad Sage and legendary Sannin can’t even heal a small, little graze?”

“Shut up, brat!” he snapped. “I could barbeque your midgety ass in a second flat if I really wanted to!”

My shoulders shook as I doubled up in laughter, clutching at my sore stomach while Jiraiya shot me death glares that would have felled a lesser person.

“Now back to the very serious matter at hand,” his voice was laced with steel as he crossed his arms. “What about the Child of the Prophecy? The one who will bring peace to the nations?”

_The Avatar, master of all four elements…_

I shook away my pop cultural references. “Well, as you were falling to your death…”

Jiraiya made a choking sound.

Wincing, I chuckled nervously and rubbed the back of my head. “Whoops, did I forget to mention that?”

“I die?!” he shrieked before starting his bombardment of questions with flailing arms. “When? How old? Was it heroic? Was it memorable? How many people went to my funeral? Was there much grieving? There better have been a hell lot of people crying over me!”

I rolled my eyes. “You were like, fifty-something, all old ‘n shit,” I flapped a hand dismissively. “You died during some epic battle with Pein… you know, that Ame kid, Nagato?”

Another gargled sound came from Jiraiya’s mouth. He had made a lot of similar choking noises throughout the course of the night.

“And as you were falling to your death,” I drawled lazily, inspecting my nails. “You realised that there wasn’t just one person who brings peace or whatever but it was actually a whole bunch of people, blah, blah, blah, whole ‘lotta crying, blah, blah.”

Jiraiya had stopped pacing and was looking at me with a slack jaw.

“Can I stop talking now?” I whined. “My throat’s all dry.”

“You are… incredibly tactless,” he said wearily, massaging his temples. “And you lack any sort of restraint.”

“I'm incredibly what and don’t have any what?”

Jiraiya grumbled, “Why am I not surprised that you don’t know those words?”

My father chose just the right moment to make an entrance as the porch door slid open. I noticed Jiraiya hastily making a discrete and impressive one-handed seal behind his back. The slip of paper on the door disintegrated silently as the soundproofing deactivated without Yoruo noticing.

“Is everything alright?” my father asked, oblivious to the true nature of the situation. “You’ve been talking for almost two hours.”

“I apologise, I must have lost track of time,” Jiraiya said smoothly, slipping back into his adult mask. “I was just telling Kurenai-chan all about being a kunoichi, wasn’t I?”

He ruffled my hair. I looked up at him with a hopeful, cherubic face.

“I wanna learn how to make seals!” I said in my baby voice.

Yoruo laughed, “You have to learn how to read and write first to be able to do that, Kurenai.”

And thus, my literacy education began. 

* * *

Having Jiraiya as my temporary sensei was annoying at best. He had immediately offered to teach me how to read and write Japanese as a convenient excuse to have me alone to talk about future events. My parents had joyously agreed, absolutely delighted that such a respected figure had taken their daughter under his wing. Hinoiri was still hesitant at the idea of her only child supposedly taking her first few steps on the path to a life-threateningly hostile work environment but she was proud of me nonetheless.

For an entire week, I sat glumly at a small, wooden desk in Jiraiya’s study and monotonously wrote out the same hiragana characters over and over again, ingraining them into my memory with a flashback to Chinese school. All the while, I explained the entire plotline of _Naruto_ in intricate detail to Jiraiya who absorbed all of the new information like a sponge, jotting everything down in a notebook.

“Don’t you have better things to do?” I griped, absentmindedly filling in the blanks of my worksheet. “Like perve on naked women at the hot springs?”

“I think we should tell the Hokage,” he ignored my jab. “The fate of the world depends on what we do with this knowledge.”

“No!” The lead tip of my pencil snapped under the force of my hand. “I mean, exactly! The guy’s too wrapped up in… you know, Hokage village-y stuff…”

Jiraiya cleared his throat. “Politics?”

“Yeah, that,” I said distractedly, grabbing a sharpener. “What if Danzo finds out?”

“That would be very bad,” he murmured, tapping his pen on a page of his open notebook.  “If not catastrophic.”

“No shit.”

“I can’t even talk to sensei about this…” a sadness showed through his tone.

“You can’t tell anyone,” I said firmly, standing my ground. “If this gets out… well, let’s just say that we’ll all be fucked and leave it at that.”

“You’re right,” he sighed dejectedly.

“And it sure feels damn good to be.”

A companionable silence filled the room with the only disturbances being the sounds of my pencil scratching upon paper and the ticking of the clock. For the first time in my second life, I felt like I had a friend. If I’d met someone like Jiraiya back in the Real World, I probably would have gotten along with him swimmingly after I’d whacked him over the head a few times and educated him about consensual voyeurism. The guy had a wicked sense of humour that I very much appreciated after all of that coddling as a child. It was a relief to finally have someone to talk to, to finally be able to discuss my deep, dark secret openly and not have to pretend to be a stupid, naïve kid in front of. Considering my extra years in the Narutoverse added onto my previous life, I was actually not that much younger than Jiraiya which was… incredibly weird to think about.

“I have to go back to Amegakure.”

_Aaaannd there goes my brief moment of happiness._

I stopped writing, trying not to look disappointed. “When are you coming back?”

“I don’t know,” he said, shutting his notebook. “I never planned on staying in Konoha for this long. It was only supposed to be for a couple of days. I have to get back to Yahiko, Konan and Nagato… especially after you’ve told me what happens to them.”

I inwardly drooped. Ah, the tragic orphaned trio. I’d forgotten for just a short while that the war had only ended recently and Jiraiya had practically adopted the kids for a few years.

 

“But what the hell am I supposed to do?!” I cried out. “What’s the plan from here on out? Do I become a ninja or not?”

“Can’t live without me already, huh?” he grinned.

I glared at the cheeky bastard but the small smile tugging at my lips betrayed me. Jiraiya simply chuckled and ruffled my hair, knowing all too well that I hated it when he did that.

“I’ll write to you,” Jiraiya reassured me. “And you can keep me updated on things.”

“Err, just a small problem?” I gestured to my semi-filled in worksheet.

The Sannin—… my _friend_ smiled. “Then you better keep at it while I’m gone.”

* * *

The bastard never wrote. For the first few weeks, I had looked around hopefully in search of a messenger bird or more likely, an anthropomorphic toad hopping towards me, carrying a letter. Nothing ever came, though, and after a few months, my spirits deflated and I gave up, cursing the perverted asshole.

Unlike Jiraiya, I stuck to my word. A majority of my third year was spent in the Konoha library accompanied by a pre-schooler’s textbook, flashcards with my own romaji translation scrawled underneath the printed characters and a stack of worksheets. I industrially filled in box after box with my juvenile penmanship until I had the entire hiragana alphabet committed to memory with the help of my mother who had me recite everything I’d learned daily without fail. After that came katakana which had me intrigued as the characters were used to transliterate words derived from foreign languages, back on the home planet, anyway. Did languages other than Japanese even exist in this universe?

I was itching to be able to start reading comprehensively, thirsty for all of the things that I could learn, for all of the theory behind chakra and jutsu. Everything about the Narutoverse contradicted the very laws of nature and operated outside the boundaries of science. It was completely fascinating but I was also insanely frustrated that I had all of these books at my disposal and the only issue was my illiteracy. I was definitely not looking forward to kanji. It was going to be a bitch to learn, as I’d experienced with Chinese.

“What are you doing?”

I tore my eyes away from my textbook at this new disturbance in my routine.

“You’re… ‘Kashi-kun?” I breathed.

The masked toddler blinked up at me, tilting his head slightly. His silver hair had grown in untamed tufts over the top of his head and his uncovered pair of dark eyes stared at me inquisitively, the younger emulation of his father. I hadn’t seen any member of the Hatake family since Minori’s passing which was well over a year ago. Our families had drifted apart after Sakumo withdrew from society for a bit, too occupied with grieving over his departed wife and being a widowed parent with the upkeep of his ninja duties.

“It’s Kakashi,” he frowned. “How do you know my name?”

I reeled back at his fluent grasp of the language, full sentences coming from the mouth of a two year old. I was a sham compared to his authentic genius… but I sure as hell wasn’t going to let some baby intimidate me.

“Don’t you remember me?” I asked.

Kakashi squinted at me, expending every ounce of his mental willpower to recollect any sort of memory.

Finding a wisp of remembrance, a spark of recognition lit up in his expression. “You have red eyes…”

“And you have grey hair,” I parroted.

“It’s not grey, it’s silver!” He looked adorably indignant at this, clenching his fists and stamping a foot on the ground.

“Whatever,” I snorted, turning back to my work.

The kid continued to scrutinise me, even having the nerve to take a seat next to me and peer at my worksheet.

“You’re not stupid,” he said. “Not like other people.”

“Erm, thanks?” I looked up in surprise, my traitorous heart swelling with pride. “You aren’t stupid, either.”

We both sat in silence after that friendly exchange with Kakashi watching me fill in cloze passages.

After I’d finished my workload for the day, I began scrawling English on a scrap piece of paper, smiling to myself as I recited the lyrics to a song I sorely missed listening to.

“What’s that?” asked Kakashi, looking mightily curious.

“It’s… it’s a language I made up,” I lied, internally cringing as I prayed to the English gods for forgiveness.

“Can you teach me?” he blurted out.

“Do you even know how to read and write properly?” I scoffed, dismissing his ridiculous proposal.

“I know more than you do!” he jabbed at my worksheet.

Scowling, I snatched the piece of paper from underneath his finger. “ _Arrogant dickhead.”_

“What did you say?” Kakashi gasped.

“You’re never gonna find out because I’m never gonna teach you.”

With that, I gathered all of my belongings and started to walk away before the silver-haired brat scrambled in front of me, blocking my way.

“I’m sorry,” he forced the words out, looking at me with imploring eyes. “Sorry for being mean. Can you please teach me now?”

My mouth opened to spit out my refusal but I was interrupted by the adult looming over me. I looked up to see the face of Hatake Sakumo with his hands on his hips.

“Kurenai-chan,” he smiled warmly. “It’s been a long time.”

“Hatake-san,” I returned the smile. “It’s nice to see you again.”

“Now, what are you going to teach my son?”

“Some new words,” it was technically not a lie. “Reading and writing, stuff like that.”

Kakashi crinkled his eyebrows, confused. I shot a warning look at him.

“Still as smart as I remember, eh?” Sakumo grinned, patting my head. “Come along now, Kakashi-kun. Say goodbye to Kurenai-chan.”

He took his son’s hand in his larger own.

“Promise that you’ll teach me?” pleaded Kakashi.

I bit my lip before relenting. “Fine. I’m here every day so you know where to find me.”

They both left me alone with my thoughts.

_There’s no harm in teaching the guy English, right? It might even prove to be useful in the future…_

I sighed, dumping my things and slumping over the table.

_The future…_

The silence of the library blanketed my surroundings. I closed my eyes tiredly and listened to the sound of my own steady breathing, clutching my textbook tightly.

 _The goddamn bane of my existence._  

* * *

### omake: letter

It had been over a year since he’d last seen her. A lot had happened since then, as his mind was constantly rife with thought, with concern for what lay ahead after that womanchild had dropped a world-shattering revelation on him. Every day, Jiraiya would pour over the pages of his notebook filled with prophecies of the future in-between training with the Ame kids on breaks. Every night, he would lose sleep, staying up to mull over the overwhelming amount of information to process, flipping through pages and reading the same lines over and over again. It was an understatement to say that they had a lot to prepare for but the sage was dealing with the most pressing matter at hand first.

Jiraiya delicately traced the words on a page dimly lit by the dying fire.

_There is no single Child of the Prophecy._

He looked over to the three children huddled together sleeping peacefully, completely unaware of what would transpire between them in years to come. Now that he knew, however, Jiraiya refused to allow for the natural order of events to occur. Kurenai, his very odd newfound ally, was reincarnated for a purpose and he would gladly march into hell and back to help her fulfil it.

The sage wasn’t exactly renowned for keeping his promises but it was never too late to start.

Picking up his trusty and very expensive fountain pen, Jiraiya scribbled out a message on a fresh page in his notebook before tearing it out. With deft hands, muscle memory and a smile on his face, he quickly folded the piece of paper into an origami toad. Taking a kunai, he pricked his finger with the sharp tip, forgoing biting his thumb which was painful and damn difficult to draw blood from. Jiraiya only reserved the gesture during battles for dramatic effect, anyway.

Making the necessary hand seals, he planted a hand onto the ground in front of him.

A single, small red messenger toad appeared in a puff of smoke.

“Please deliver this to Yuuhi Kurenai in Konoha,” he said, handing the courier his origami message.

The summon placed it into a satchel, saluted Jiraiya faithfully with a webbed hand and hopped away into the night.

Letting out a sigh, the Sannin sat back and looked up towards the night sky dotted with stars, accompanied by a crescent moon hanging in the dark expanse. He wondered if it would still look the same after everything was over. Dismissing the thought and scoffing to himself, Jiraiya laughed softly at his own idiocy and laid down on his sleeping bag, gazing up at the stars.

Of course it would.


	7. ivy (friendship)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein Kakashi is both a brat and a lonely, little kid. Jiraiya's reply also arrives, being only one year late.

****

My favourite character was a conceited and entitled little shit.

As an adult, Kakashi was a total badass who stole the hearts of many a thirteen year old weeaboo but as a child? I had to constantly suppress the urge to throttle him and shank him in the eye just to get him a little bit closer to his older self. I had no damn inkling of a clue as to how I’d tolerated with his infuriating presence for so long, enduring months of his incessant wankery over his supreme intelligence. There was no denying that Kakashi was a scarily fast learner but he didn’t have to remind me of his pre-eminence every five fucking minutes.

“But I _am_ better than other people,” said the vile spawn.

Groaning, I buried my face in my arms crossed on the table, almost giving in to the notion of banging my head against the desk repeatedly to redundantly make the pain go away… or bashing Kakashi over the head with a library copy of the Narutoverse’s equivalent of _Gray’s Anatomy_.

“Being smart isn’t the only thing that makes you a better person,” I sighed lowly, raking my fingers through tangled strands of my hair. “Take it from a smart person like me.”

The masked demon child narrowed his eyes, “Then you can’t be smart.”

_I invented an entire fucking language, kid, what more do you want from me?!_

Hushing the aggravated screams in my head, I shot a subzero glare at the impudent brat who simply huffed and averted his eyes from me.

“Fine,” I snapped, throwing my arms up in frustration. “Go learn _English_ by yourself, then, _you stupid little shit!_ ”

“What did you call me?” Kakashi growled.

“I called you,” I stalked up to his face, daringly looking down at him from my superior height. “A stupid. Little. Shit.”

Pulling back my head, I smirked at him as he stood there fuming with clenched fists at his sides.

“Fight me,” he hissed. “I dare you.”

A look of confused disbelief crossed over my features as all of the animosity within me dissipated. “Err, what?”

_Had I heard the guy correctly?_

Kakashi adopted a fighting stance and my jaw almost dropped.

“This is a public area, you idiot. And I won’t ever fight a stupid baby like you!”

“I’m not stupid,” he shouted. “And I am not a baby!”

With those words, the three year old charged at me before I could react and thrust out to strike me with a fist but not before I grabbed his wrist.

“Cut it out!” I screamed, struggling to keep hold of him as I restrained his other arm.

The little bastard kicked me in the shin and I cried out in pain, loosening my grip on him. With a strength that seemed impossible for a child his size, Kakashi grabbed both of my arms in his painful grasp and kept them secured away from his face.

“Why do you talk like you’re so much older than me?” he demanded, his intense gaze boring into mine.

“You’re hurting me, you crazy son of bitch!”

Kakashi’s grip tightened around my wrists. I could feel the bruises forming underneath his fingers. I was never going to let him live this down when he was older.

“Shut up! Don’t talk about her like that,” he cried, tears running down his masked cheeks. “You’re not better than me!”

The whole situation was surreal. As the librarian rushed onto the scene, yelling for Kakashi to stop and as another adult pried him off of me, I merely stood there frozen on the spot, watching the silver-haired child tug away his mask and break down into angry tears. My saviours hovered over me with concern.

“Are you okay?” the man who had separated us asked, offering a hand.

I nodded dumbly as the sound of soft sobbing reached my ears and stood up without taking hold of his outstretched fingers.

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” the librarian regarded Kakashi with scorn. “Your father will be so disappointed.”

I was torn between running over to him and giving him a bone crushing hug and running the hell away from the unstable child. How were you supposed to react after an incident such as this?

My wrists ached as light bruises in the form of finger outlines bloomed over the skin. My mind was consumed with racing, jittery thoughts as my body operated on autopilot. The librarian thanked the man who intervened before herding us to what was supposed to be our holding cell in the form of the area behind the library’s front desk. Stacks of unshelved books lay on countertops and trolleys surrounding us, serving as our metaphorical prison bars.

“Both of you will stay here until your parents come,” he said sternly before turning to assist a patron at the help desk.

By now, Kakashi had his mask back on and had stopped crying and was sitting beside me numbly, rubbing his reddened eyes. The level of uncomfortableness between us was almost tangible.  If he were older, I would have screamed bloody murder, sued his ass for assault, filed a restraining order and cut off all contact with the psycho brat.

Sucking in a breath, I calmed myself down and exhaled.

But I knew Kakashi. I knew his situation, I knew his dead mother and I knew that the little boy by my side was psychologically unsound. Being a child prodigy with a single parent who seemed to have already started ninja training for a three year old would screw anyone up, as far as I could tell. With all things considered, Kakashi in canon had survived finding the body of a pariah father who had committed suicide, being responsible for the death of his teammate, killing the remaining one out of sheer necessity and the sacrifice of his sensei.

It was almost enough for me to drop my charges against him, envelop him in my arms and tell him that everything was going to be okay but it wasn’t.

“ _I’m sorry._ ”

It was said in sotto voce, in a whisper… in my mother tongue, albeit with a foreign accent. I finally looked at him eye-to-eye. Kakashi tensed visibly, appearing to be absolutely miserable and remorseful of his actions.

I took hold of his hand, squeezed it reassuringly and murmured, “Let’s get out of here.”

It was definitely not the reaction that he was expecting and he trailed after me in bewilderment as I dragged him towards the librarian.

“Fukurou-san?”

The bespectacled middle-aged man looked at me inquisitively, puzzled at the sight of me holding my attacker’s hand.

“Yes?”

“‘Kashi-kun’s daddy is on a mission and I promised I’d walk him back,” I said meekly, looking up at the librarian with innocent eyes. “We’re all better now, I promise.”

Giving us a long, calculating stare, he made up his mind and sighed, “Okay, you can both go now. Behave like this again and I will ban you both from the library.”

Shooing us away, we gathered our belongings from our desk and gratefully scrambled out of the place.

Before the silver-haired brat could say anything, I let go of his hand and whipped around sharply to face him with a stern look that an adult scolding a child would wear.

“Don’t you ever dare hurt me again, you hear me?” I growled. “You can’t just turn on your friends like that for no good reason.”

Kakashi nodded ruefully, rubbing his swollen eyes.

“I’m sorry for calling you names. It was wrong of me to say those things… but please, don’t do that ever again.”

“I’m sorry too,” he sniffled. “You’re not dumb… but why do you act like it in front of everyone else?”

I could never get anything past the kid. I knew that Kakashi would without a doubt figure out my secret as he got older, especially if he were suspicious at this age. He was essential to stopping the tragedy of the canonical plotline and as a key player, I needed him on my side and in the know. If I chose not to enter a career of patriotic bloodshed and psychological detriment, then Kakashi would be the knight on my shogi board.

Gesturing my head to the path ahead, I offered him a hand. Kakashi grasped it tentatively and followed my stride beside me. We started to make our way towards the training grounds.

“Being as smart as us isn’t always a good thing,” I said. “You get singled out, people put more expectations on you…”

“But that makes us special,” Kakashi protested with a naïveté that only emphasised how frighteningly young he was. “We’re better than everyone else, right?”

I wanted to blurt out everything that would happen to the poor kid, everything that happened to Itachi and expose the corrupt regime of Konoha’s council but with great self-restraint, I reigned in my impulse and went on with my lecture.

“You can’t think like that. Everyone has different things that they’re good and bad at,” I explained, feeling the loose soil crunch underneath my feet on the ground. “For example, you’re a genius but you’re also an arrogant and spoiled brat.”

“Hey! I thought you said you’d stop being mean,” Kakashi pouted, twisting his hand away from mine.

“The truth hurts,” I grinned cheekily, grabbing his hand back before squeezing it to placate him. “I’m also smart but I can be impatient and reckless and… mean, as you’ve said.”

He glanced down at our hands thoughtfully, as if to debate wrenching his own away again while absorbing this new information. In reluctant acceptance, he nodded.

“I guess…”

Grassy fields came into view as we approached our destination. Ninjas were sparring together in a flurry of fire and kunai, moving faster than the civilian eye could follow. Kakashi watched in undisguised admiration as one of the ninjas performed an impressive backflip to dodge a rain of shuriken before blasting a fire jutsu at his opponent in mid-air. Dragging the awestruck child in the opposite direction, I led Kakashi towards a familiar large, blue monument. It loomed over our tiny heads in an area that was noticeably deserted and eerily quiet. The many inscriptions of names shone in the sunlight, reflecting some sort of sick pride that was part of this ‘verse’s ideology to have mere children killed in action.

“Do you know what this is?” I asked.

Kakashi shook his head.

“It’s a memorial stone… those are the names of ninja who are dead.”

He stilled at my words, looking solemnly at the memorial. I let my statement sink in for a bit before speaking again.

“They want kids like us,” I said. “Kids who are smarter beyond their years, kids who are prodigies… and while you might dream of becoming a ninja and think it’s all great and such an _honour_ to serve Konoha,” a bitterness crept into my voice. “I don’t want to die as a child… I don’t want to end up like the people on this memorial stone.” _Not again._

The sun blazed down at us in a clear sky as birds chirped mockingly against the humourless setting. Kakashi stood there voicelessly, clearly shaken as he clenched my hand tightly.

“Do you understand?”

“But I won’t let you die!” he cried out. “I’ll protect you and we’ll both be really good ninjas and everyone will look up to us. We’ll be like Dad… and he says that it’s great to be a ninja!”

My heart clenched. “Reality’s not like that.”

“Dad would never lie to me,” his voice cracked. “You’re the one who’s lying.”

“I’m so sorry,” my lip trembled. “But it’s the truth. You’re my only friend, Kakashi-kun. I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“B-but… but Mum died anyway,” Kakashi choked back on his tears. “And she wasn’t even on a mission or anything!”

 

It felt like I was dismantling his childhood and tearing it down viciously, as if I had snatched away his rose-tinted glasses and smashed them underneath my foot. My heart broke as I watched Kakashi struggle to prematurely come to terms with a harsh reality.

“Why do people have to die?” he whispered brokenly. “It’s not fair…”

Stepping forward, I hugged the crying child and held his shaking form in my arms. I shut my eyes tightly and let out a shuddery breath, suppressing memories of a former life.

“I know,” I murmured, stroking his back consolingly. “ _I’m sorry I couldn’t save your mother… but I’ll save everyone else, okay? I won’t let you down, Kakashi. Things will be different this time ‘round._ ”

“Wh-what did you s-say?” he hiccoughed, stepping away from my arms.

“I’m sorry about your mum,” I said gently. “And I’ve always got your six, okay?”

“My six…?”

I smiled. “Your six o’clock. It means I’ve always got your back.”

Kakashi didn’t say anything for a while and wiped his face with the back of his hand. Looking towards the memorial stone for a moment, he tore his eyes away from the cenotaph to face me. Finally speaking again, he gave me a watery smile.

“ _Thank you._ ”

* * *

“Wake up, Kure-chan.”

Consciousness pricked at my vision as pinpoints of light filtered through the crack in my heavy-lidded eyes. I immediately inched them shut again and groaned, still half-asleep.

“Kaachan, leave me alone, I still wanna sleep…”

The saccharine voice revealed its undercurrent of malice in a tone that immediately jolted me awake. “Oh, I’m not your Kaachan, you little brat.”

Bolting upright in my bed, I warily turned to face an adult version of myself who wore a scowl on her face. A crazed expression haunted her crimson eyes as a twisted smirk graced her features.

“Finally, I get you all to myself,” she sang.

Vines began to entwine themselves around my bed, snaking around my limbs and binding me to the mattress. My screams went unheard as thorns dug into my flesh, the sensation of an endless, painful stinging enveloping all four of my disabled limbs. The deep red of the roses blooming from the ripe buds of the vines only complemented the blood oozing from the punctures in my skin.

My demented torturer leaned her head towards my face, ignoring my cries.

“You’re a coward,” the demon hissed and slapped my face with a backhand.

Tears of pain ran freely down my cheeks, the right side left smarting while the thorns dug deeper into my flesh.

“Who the fuck are you?” I spat at it, clenching my fists.

“ _I’m you, dumbass,_ ” it rolled its eyes in a chilling imitation of my own tone in English and mannerisms before throwing back its head, letting out a peal of jeering laughter. “Just kidding but I might as well be you.”

It paced around my bed, tilting its head while it observed my trapped and helpless state with a sick satisfaction.

“Do you know how it feels to be trapped inside your own mind as a filthy parasite takes control over your body?”

There was a pounding on my bedroom door. The demon whipped its head towards my salvation and let out a snarl before grabbing the lamp on my nightstand, simultaneously tearing the plug from its socket with a preternatural strength. Flinging it into the closed door, the light bulb audibly shattered into pieces and the pounding grew more frantic.

“HELP!” I screamed. “SOMEBODY HELP ME!”

The thorned vines began to slowly retract themselves from my limbs as the roses shrivelled up into decaying petals.

“I’ll see you again soon,” the demon growled its foreboding promise as my surroundings faded away in a bright light.

A rush of air filled my lungs as a sat upright and found myself back in reality. There was a tapping noise at my window which made me jump in my jittery state. Grabbing the chair from my desk, I crept up towards the curtains and placed it down. Standing on top of the chair, I braced myself and swept them open, only to be met with a bright red toad knocking on the glass with a webbed hand.

“Jiraiya?” I exclaimed in disbelief.

“Could you open this damn window, already?” the messenger toad screeched atop a tree branch. “I’ve been out here for ages!”

Hastily sliding the glass panel open, the toad leapt over my head and into my bedroom, landing gracefully onto the timber floor.

“I’m gettin’ too old for this,” he grumbled, digging into the satchel around his torso.

The messenger fished out a cute origami toad and thrust it into my hand.

“Don’t only frogs have webbed fingers?” I frowned. “And er, thank you, Gama-san.”

“I was born this way, okay?! And it’s Gerosumi to you, kid! No respect these days,” the cranky old geezer clucked his tongue in disapproval.

“I was only just recovering from a hellish nightmare and now a goddamn talking toad suddenly appears in my bedroom. Sorry for my lack of social etiquette,” I drawled sarcastically.

“I’ve seen too many weird things in my lifetime, so don’t be too disappointed with my lack of surprise at a kid like you,” he droned with disinterest.

I stared at the origami toad in my palms, folded out of lined notebook paper.

“Are you gonna open it or what?”

Shooting the rude messenger with a glare, I carefully unfolded the message. The suspense was killing me as the message gradually opened up, only to reveal the pathetically tiny line of hiragana characters scrawled carelessly onto the page:

_Miss me? – Jiraiya_

“That stupid, perverted bastard!” I shrieked, scrunching up the letter and tossing it onto the floor. “Over one fucking year of nothing and this is what I get?!”

“Jeez, would you calm yourself down a bit?” said Gerosumi, crossing his arms. “And cut back on the swearing, it’s terrible to hear such dirty words from the mouth of a young girl.”

“Shut the fuck up, you old m—… toad,” I spluttered angrily, sitting on my bed with a disgruntled pout.

“Are you going to reply anytime soon so I can get out of here and away from your charming presence?”

The nightmare flashed in my mind and I bit my lip nervously. Dragging the chair from the window back to my desk, I started to furiously scribble down my response in my rudimentary hiragana and katakana, substituting what little words in kanji that I was familiar with so far. I wrote about my developing literacy skills, Kakashi and the nightmare which still had my nerves fried. My letter was almost definitely a grammatical mess but I got the message across. Gerosumi waited patiently without saying a word until I was finished. I stood up from my seat and waved the sheets of paper in front of his face.

“Finally,” he huffed, snatching them from my hand. “Thought you’d started writing a novel for a moment back there. I’m guessing that this letter contains sensitive information?”

“Yeah?”

Gerosumi took out a slip of paper with an intricate design comprised of painted characters.

“Secret toad jutsu: confidential seal!”

Placing his hand over the seal on my letter, the slip glowed with orange chakra. The words of my message simply melted away, leaving inconspicuous blank sheets of paper.

“Well, that’s done,” he sighed with relief, pocketing the letter. “Do you have any refreshments?”

I looked at him blankly. “What does a toad even eat?”

“Bah! Forget it, I shouldn’t even have asked. I’m gonna complain to Jiraiya-sama about your rude behaviour, y’hear me?”

Without bidding me goodbye, the messenger toad made a more familiar animal seal and poofed away in a plume of smoke, leaving me standing alone in my empty bedroom in bewilderment.


	8. sakura (impermanence)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chaos erupts in the Konoha hospital with the beginnings of another war imminent. Yoruo is critically wounded and Kurenai struggles.  
> \+ omake: sister

I tried not to dwell too much on my nightmare. My memory of it had remained frighteningly clear unlike every other dream. Jiraiya had replied to my letter and advised me to not be too concerned with the postscript of, “We need to talk about your grammar later.” My subconscious was probably taking it out on me, the underhanded little jerkass. The demon hadn’t delivered on its promise to visit me again in my sleep, of which I was grateful for… but there was still the overhanging “yet” which prevailed.

I outright avoided the general direction of my mother’s rose garden, though.

I peered over at my mother’s scattered botanical academic journals strewn over her desk as she kept her head down studiously and scribbled down notes. Hinoiri’s wavy black locks formed a veil over the sides of her face. Her lips pursed in contemplation as she tapped her pen on the table, turning to pour over journal articles before jotting down references in her notebook. I’d spent many evenings simply watching Hinoiri work on her research papers, fascinated at how similar scientific reports were written and collated as they were back in the Real World. Granted, they were all in Japanese and I could hardly understand any of it but the formatting was all too familiar and brought me back to my days in university.

“You’re really pretty and really smart, Kaachan.”

Hinoiri stopped writing as a peal of laughter escaped from her lips. She patted me over the head, smiling at me warmly. Brushing my hair behind my ear, my mother appraised me with a proud look on her face. Her thumb lingered against my cheek gently.

“Thank you, Kure-chan. I could say the same to you, sweetheart.”

I have to admit that I was a sucker for my parents’ affections and praise.

There was a frantic knocking at the front door.

Hinoiri frowned, “I wasn’t expecting any visitors today.”

Whenever I had heard that phrase be uttered, I knew that shit was inevitably gonna go down. I tottered after her as she got up to answer the door, only to be faced with a frazzled courier ninja who was out of breath and panting.

“Urgent message for Yuuhi Hinoiri!”

He thrust a letter out towards her and hastily bowed when Hinoiri took it from his hands. Without another word, the courier immediately body flickered away, no doubt to deliver other messages to their assigned addressees.

Upon reading the letter, she blanched. With trembling hands, Hinoiri sat back down in her seat and let out a shaky breath. Dread filled my stomach.

“Kaachan?” I tugged on her sleeve. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s your father,” my mother’s voice was thick with grief. “He’s in the hospital… he’s been hurt badly, Kurenai.” 

* * *

It was the first time that I had seen so many bodies and I was certain that it wouldn’t be my last. I was definitely not prepared for the gruesome aftermath of a devastating ambush.

“Come on… come on!”

The green glow of the medic’s hands continually flickered and died with each attempt to resuscitate the patient’s heart. Blood adorned the unconscious ninja’s face and soaked his clothes. Similar scenes surrounded the gurney as wounded patients were being rushed in and out of the crowded waiting room, straight from the battlefield. Konoha’s medical facilities and resources were obviously stretched thin if they were being forced to hold patients outside of the overcrowded emergency room.

“We’ve lost him,” the medic gritted her teeth and gripped the edge of the bed before letting out a weary sigh. “Time of death: nine twenty-one p.m.…”

As soon as I averted my eyes from the sight, the very face of carnage was wheeled into the room. Burns had disintegrated the flesh of the ninja’s body, leaving horrific wounds which exposed bone and sinewy tissue on his arms. His open mouth was but a gaping hole in his charred off face. The man was only in the room for a fleeting moment before being rushed to the operating room but the image was perpetually seared into my mind.

A shuddery chill rattled my body as my stomach heaved. Without another thought, I rushed into the nearest restroom and shut myself in an empty toilet stall, panting while I rested a palm on the door. My dinner threatened to expel itself from my stomach as I tried to stop myself from puking all over the floor.

“ _Fuck,_ ” I gasped and rushed to lean over the toilet bowl, retching.

Hastily tearing off a fistful of toilet paper, I wiped my soiled mouth before resisting the urge to vomit yet again. A stream of curses escaped my lips as I marched to the sink and splashed water on my face. The gory images flashed in my mind again and I whipped my head up to look at the mirror. A pair of haunted crimson eyes stared back at me, looking out of place on a frighteningly young face.

It would be a goddamn miracle if I didn’t get PTSD from living in this fucked up universe.

Drying myself off and straightening out my tousled hair, I inhaled a shaky breath.

“ _Just don’t think about it… fluffy kitties, pretty ladies, cute men, rainbows and motherfuckin’ sunshine,_ ” I muttered to myself as I walked out of the restroom. “ _Just don’t think about it._ ”

My mother was sitting in the waiting room amidst the chaos, wringing her hands anxiously. I tried my hardest not to look at the surrounding patients as I approached her.

“Okaasan,” she would know that I was being serious when I addressed her as such. “I really don’t want to stay here… please?”

I was on the verge of tears. Hinoiri noticed this and immediately stood up, grasped my hand and walked me out of the room.

We stopped in the middle of an empty corridor of the hospital.

“I’m so sorry, Kurenai,” her voice trembled. “I should have known.”

“It’s not your fault… Kaachan doesn’t have to be sorry.”

“You don’t have to be here,” she said. “We probably won’t be able to see Otousan until morning.”

The adult within me scolded the crying child who yearned to be curled up in bed and swaddled in warm blankets, away from the sickeningly clinical environment of Konoha hospital.

“You can stay with Kakashi-kun, if you like.”

As soon as Hinoiri mentioned the lovable silver-haired brat, the mature conscience in my head shut up and I caved.

* * *

The Hatake household always felt lonely. Sakumo was absent for a majority of the time often on missions, leaving his son alone with a carer who felt more like a social worker than a loving guardian. There simply wasn’t enough time for a close attachment to form between the child and carer as the individual frequently changed. Supposedly, Konoha’s social welfare system was still one of the best out there and it made me cringe thinking of what the worst could possibly be like.

It was already a late time for a child of my age to be up after my mother had dropped me off at the Hatake home and the carer immediately ushered Kakashi and I into sleeping.

“Time for bed, kids,” the kind-faced woman said.

Kakashi looked bored as he obediently climbed into his bed and turned to face away from the adult. Following in his stead, I slipped into my futon on the ground, nestling in underneath the covers.

“Goodnight,” the social worker flicked the light switch off.

“Goodnight,” I echoed.

Kakashi remained silent.

After the door shut softly and the sound of departing footsteps could no longer be heard, Kakashi instantly turned on the lamp at his bedside table and got up.

“Kurenai-chan?” he whispered.

“What?”

“Are you okay?” His question took me by surprise.

I bit my lip as memories of the burn victim flooded my mind again. It wasn’t helping the thought of the possibility of waking up to the news of my father being dead in the morning.

My silence had been dragged out for too long as the sound of rustling sheets jolted me out of my dark musings. Kakashi had gotten out of bed and proceeded to sit down next to my futon.

“I’m fine,” I murmured, turning away from him. “Go back to bed.”

“You’re lying.”

I gritted my teeth, “I’m not lying.”

“No, you’re lying,” he said firmly. “I know because I lie too when people ask me if I’m okay whenever Dad is really hurt.”

Stupid perceptive and genius child. Wiping the tears that were now flowing, I sniffled.

“He’s never been hurt this badly…” I said forlornly, still not facing him.

Kakashi sat there uncomfortably listening to my sobs as I buried my face into my pillow and cried my eyes out. He wordlessly patted my head gently with his tiny hand in consolation throughout my tears. After my crying had abated, Kakashi cleared his throat and I finally rolled over to my other side and faced him, looking miserable and completely pitiful.

“Do you…” he ducked his head sheepishly. “Do you, uh, want a hug?”

I practically threw myself into his arms after his offer and buried my head in the crook of his neck. The awkward child was too shocked to respond at first before finally figuring out what to do with his arms as he hesitantly wrapped them around me.

“ _Silly kid,_ ” I smiled into his shoulder.

“ _I’m not silly,_ ” Kakashi scoffed. “Idiot.”

Pulling away in laughter, I gave him a friendly shove. He was—at that moment— sensible enough as to not give into his childish pride and return it.

I flung away the covers of my futon and patted the spot beside me.

“Get in,” I said. “You must be freezing.”

Kakashi looked hesitant and remained sitting in the bitter cold of the night. Little shivers gave his physiological condition away. I knew that he was already uncomfortable with the amount of hugging and breaching of personal space for one night… but my gesture was only out of friendly concern added with, y’know, getting close to Kakashi in regards to the machinations of furthering my plan to save the Narutoverse.

Jussayin’.

I smiled lopsidedly, “I don’t bite, you know.”

He relented and crawled into the futon with me, gingerly putting his head onto the pillow as I shifted over to give him some space.

“Can I ask you something?”

“You just did,” he muttered, closing his eyes.

Rolling my own, I went on, “Are you scared of dying?”

Kakashi’s eyes snapped open and he stiffened. I might have been an ass for springing this question on a toddler but I was morbidly curious about a child soldier-in-making’s sentiments about a realistic outcome. It was just one of those times where a late-night deep and meaningful conversation about melancholy shit was bound to happen.

“I’ve never thought about it,” he said softly but the true answer was written all over his face. “Are you?”

_Been there, done that._

“Of course I am,” I huffed shamelessly. “Why the hell wouldn’t I be? I’ve only lived, what, almost five years in this world?” _which is technically true._ “And I can’t even read kanji yet! I still have so many things that I haven’t done and if I were dead, I’d miss out on all of them. How shitty would that be?”

Kakashi stayed silent for a while, clenching and unclenching his grip on the blanket before sighing and finally speaking up.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “I guess…”

“Exactly.”

We both stared up at the ceiling in silence after that. Kakashi was still fiddling with the edge of the blanket, shifting restlessly in bed.

“They’re taking in enrolments for the Academy now,” he said quietly.

This was the very conversation that I dreaded.

I dug my fingers into my pillow and sighed, “I know.”

“Are you going to do it?”

It was the question that I asked myself every day. A large part of me screamed, “Hell no!” especially after the grisly scene today but the contrarian doubt at the back of my mind whispered, “Maybe you could stay as a genin for basic self-defence…?” It wasn’t a bad idea in foresight and it was a rather pragmatic plan, to be completely rational. The experience would also allow me to gain a perspective into this shinobi mentality and get closer to the very people who would play a part in saving this damned universe… not to mention super cool jutsu. I would only graduate from the Academy, do the D-rank missions for a bit of pocket money and most likely hang up my headband before the chuunin exams, before anything that would put my fragile mortality at a major risk.

Sure, I’d be a huge disappointment to my family and my acquired friends and colleagues would most definitely look down on me with my pathetically low aspirations and my wasted potential… but fuck ‘em, it was my life and I preferred to keep it that way: freakin’ alive and not bloody dead.

“…maybe,” I replied noncommittally.

He looked slightly pleased with this answer. “Okay, good. ‘Cause you should.”

Rolling over onto my side, I propped up an elbow and rested a hand against my cheek. “Can I tell you something, Kakashi-kun?”

“What is it?”

“You’re actually a lot smarter than me, you know,” I said, knowing exactly how I was boosting his ego.

He smirked, “Yeah, I know.”

“But I’m a hell lot wiser… there’s a difference between wisdom and intelligence.”

“How are they different?” Kakashi frowned.

“Intelligence is something you’re born with,” I said sagely. “But wisdom comes from experience.”

“But you’re only a year older than me!”

I reached out and flicked his forehead playfully, grinning and sticking my tongue out.

“Still.”

Kakashi threw away the covers, got up and scowled, “I’m going to sleep.”

He marched disgruntledly back to his own bed while I smiled amusedly at his childishly thin skin. The lamplight switched off and I closed my eyes.

“ _Night, bro._ ”

“What does ‘ _bro_ ’ mean?” his voice was muffled underneath the blankets.

“Night, otouto.”

The kid didn’t answer for a while before finally muttering, “…goodnight, neechan.” 

* * *

My father was awake.

Yoruo’s face was twisted in a haggard grimace and his chest heaved with each inhalation through the oxygen mask. I sat alone next to his bedside, grasping his larger hand with my own child-sized ones. He gave me a weary smile, squeezing my hand as if to remind me that he was still there, still alive and not left dead and bleeding in a battlefield somewhere.

“I need to talk to you,” he rasped. “It’s to do with this… this whole situation.”

The tone that he used was usually reserved for adult talk of ninja affairs, something that he never discussed with me.

There were outbreaks of inter-village skirmishes over trade disputes and other political fluff of which Yoruo informed me about. Tensions were brewing between the smaller settlements involved and the Hidden Villages who refused to intervene out of fear of another war, despite being allies. This was evident when my father and many other ninjas were shipped off to patrol duty on the south-west border of the Fire Country for a few months. They were to maintain control of the scuffles and prevent any belligerents from crossing the border and invading the Fire Country.

Of course, my father kept it in layman’s terms for a child like me to be able to grasp it all. He knew that I understood the gravity of the situation, though. Yoruo’s eyes stared at me knowingly throughout his explanation while I maintained a grim expression.

Coughing and clearing his throat croakily, he took a moment to recover from his excessive speech.

“We never saw them coming. It was…” he swallowed and continued. “It was an ambush. Some terrorist organisation… I mean, a group of ninjas unhappy with Konoha’s decision to stay away from the fights just suddenly attacked along the entire border.”

“O-otousan,” my voice shook. “Why are you telling me all of this?”

“They’re taking in more kids than usual for the Academy for next year and they’re loosening the requirements,” my father closed his eyes and sighed wearily. “There’s… there is talk of a war.”

My breath hitched at this. _The Third Shinobi World War._

“Damned if we do, damned if we don’t,” he muttered darkly to himself.

Shit, they were preparing themselves by recruiting more children?! It would explain the age discrepancies between this generation’s cohort. All the friends that I would make in the Academy would be fucking conscripted, sent to an absurdly pointless war and—…

“You will have to fight in this war should it ever happen, Kurenai.”

“No!” my refusal automatically tore itself away from my lips. “No, I don’t want to be a ninja.”

“It is your duty,” Yoruo rasped. “To make use of your talents and serve this village.”

“So what, you’d just send your own daughter off to die in some stupid war?” I snapped, standing up defiantly from my seat. “What the hell kind of a parent are you?!

“A parent who doesn’t want their only child to waste her potential.”

“My potential means nothing IF I’M DEAD!” I snarled, not believing the utter bullshit that was own father was spewing.

“Kuren—” he began to cough uncontrollably, his oxygen mask filling with blood.

“ _Shit!_ ” I scrambled to rip it away from his mouth and slammed down the assistance call button by his bedside.

Yoruo just wouldn’t stop hacking his lungs out as large amounts of blood began appearing on the bed sheets. My heart raced as I panicked and frantically hit the button again and again.

“Somebody help!” I screamed as I watched my father gurgle and choke on the overflow of blood that was pouring from his mouth.

My mother rushed into the room at the same time as medical help arrived. I couldn’t stand to watch as they treated him and I immediately ran out of the room, cursing this universe in every language that I knew and thinking that I would have been better off if I had stayed as dead.

* * *

### omake: sister

The silver-haired child sat glumly at his desk, scribbling out inane English letters that Kurenai had taught him. His carer hovered over him irritatingly like a buzzing fly who wouldn’t go away.

“What are you writing?” she asked curiously.

“Nothing,” Kakashi replied bluntly.

“Oh… well, okay.”

Kakashi knew that he was being unaccommodating and mean but he didn’t care. It wasn’t as if they truly cared about him, anyway. They only worried about keeping their own jobs. He didn’t blame Sakumo for being away all the time, though. His dad was a hero who saved lives and was a respected, powerful ninja. Sakumo was only following his duty to be away on missions and Kakashi could completely understand that. He wanted to _be_ that in the future.

There was a knock at the door.

“I wonder who that is,” the carer thought aloud. “It’s late as well…”

The disgruntled child ignored her as she went to answer the door. A woman’s familiar voice spoke up and Kakashi stopped writing to listen intently.

“Is it alright if Kurenai stayed over for the night?”

It was her mother.

“Yes, it’s fine. Hatake-san has told me of your daughter.”

“Thank you so much. Kure-chan, say thank you to the nice lady.”

“Thank you,” her voice sounded so unlike her, so uncharacteristically… broken.

Kakashi got up and peered outside his room into the corridor which led up to the front door. There she was, the oddly intelligent older girl with the red eyes which were currently downcast.

Kurenai’s mother hugged her daughter and left after saying goodbye. The carer guided the sad-looking girl into his room.

“Hello,” he said.

She smiled weakly in return, “Hey.”

Kakashi was taken aback at her quiet meekness. Kurenai was usually so brash and confident of herself, incessantly teasing him about whatever aspect of his personality she could make fun of while possessing a dirtier mouth than some of Sakumo’s ninja friends. It was like having an older sibling who annoyed you to no end except you couldn’t help but respect them. Kurenai was the only other child his age who wasn’t that much more stupid than he was and he could actually hold a decent conversation with her.

It was… nice to have a friend.

The idiotic social worker said something about an early bedtime which had Kakashi refraining from rolling his eyes, a habit that he had acquired from Kurenai. He couldn’t ignore the noticeable droop in her shoulders and from the look on her face, it was clear that she was close to crying.

Inwardly sighing, Kakashi crawled into bed and wondered if this feeling was what it’d be like to be worried for a sister.


	9. fig (enlightenment)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The idea of being a ninja is less than favourable and Jiraiya tries to persuade her otherwise. Kurenai realises her flaws and learns shogi in the process.

I lay in bed and faced the ceiling, wallowing in my self-pity.  It had been several days since I’d had my friendly chat with my ever so loving father before he coded and almost coughed up a lung in front of me. Yoruo’s relapse into a critically unstable condition left my mother unwaveringly stationed near his bedside. Hinoiri only ever came home to cook me meals and keep me updated on my father’s health. If I had been any less mature for my age and not a reincarnated adult in a child’s body, it would’ve been considered as neglect on her part but I reassured her that I was capable of being by myself. I was glad that I was away from the hellhole that was Konoha’s hospital, anyway.

I didn’t even bother answering the knock at my bedroom door or getting up when a familiar perverted sage walked in after receiving no invitation.

“I got your letter,” he said.

“If you’re here to convince me about joining the Academy, then you can just fuck off right now, Ero-sennin.”

Jiraiya applied his sound-proofing seal and walked towards me. My bed shifted and creaked as he sat down on the end of the mattress. Not wanting to show my pitiful face, I buried my head underneath my blanket.

“I thought we’d already discussed this,” he sighed.

“Change of plans,” my voice was muffled but the resolution in my tone was firm.

I sure as hell was not getting conscripted and I wasn’t desperate enough to break a limb just to get out of it when the time came.

“I doubt that your reincarnation was meaningless, Kurenai-chan. You were obviously reborn into this world for a reason and it’d be counterintuitive if you died again anytime soon.”

I repressed the barely formed insult that rose up with the bitterness in my throat. “And your thoughts are based on what, _unevidenced conjecture?_ ” I drawled sardonically, curled up in foetal position underneath the bed sheets.

“I’m assuming that means something along the lines of, ‘bullshit’,” Jiraiya chuckled. “You know, you’re being an awfully whiny little brat, right now.”

“Fuck you!” I snarled at the man, sitting up indignantly. “I have every goddamn right to be!”

“Not many people can say that they’ve been given a second chance at life after dying.”

He was infuriatingly calm and so... so patronising, as if he were talking to a child. Where was the juvenile pervert that I was so familiar with? Was that all just a clever rouse to mistakenly let others’ guards down?

I seethed at his sanctimonious wisdom and wanted to break his controlled expression. “And what a great opportunity it is,” I sneered. “Being forced into a life that I don’t even want.”

I was sick of conforming to someone else’s standards. I’d previously carved out a life for myself in accordance to my parents’ expectations with the constant pushing, how I was never enough… I swallowed. God, I hadn’t thought about my original parents in so long. Did they miss me? How did they mourn for my death? I closed my eyes, the painstakingly constructed defensive composure I so desperately clung onto cracking.

“Doesn’t that apply to everyone, though?” said Jiraiya serenely, daring to reach out and brush away the fallen curtain of hair over my anguished eyes. “People always want what they don’t have… and then it’s all gone when they die. You, however, have been given a once in a lifetime—” the sage caught himself on his mistake and chuckled. “—well, more like once in another lifetime opportunity… to start over. To make a difference.”

Remaining silent, I clutched at the bed sheets underneath my fingers.

Jiraiya went on, “I know you may see it as a great burden but…” his demeanour shattered with the appearance of a sheepish crooked smile on his face. “Shit, Kurenai, help me out a little, here? I’m running out of wise material.”

An unexpected laugh bubbled out from my mouth which made the man grin and ruffle my hair.

“There’s the little brat we all know and love.”

At his affectionate gesture, whatever resentment or fury that I previously held instantly crumbled as my face softened. It was easy to forget that Jiraiya wasn’t the wizened Sannin that he was in the series but a guy in his mid-twenties who had just reached his prime. He’d fought and won a war with all limbs intact and he’d become a bloody honest-to-god sage… yet the young face that was looking at me now still reeked of an idealistic hope that the world could be saved in some part by a reincarnated stranger from another universe. I knew that this sentiment of his would never disappear but I wondered how many hits his idealism would take before it dimmed in the future.

“But… but I don’t want to fight in the front lines,” I mumbled and looked downwards, trying to quell the shame of my cowardice. “I saw a guy die right in front of me… and I saw another with his fucking face burned off, Jiraiya. I-I just… I don’t think I can—”

“You don’t have to.”

 I whipped my head up, thinking I’d misheard him. “What do you mean?”

“Konoha needs more than just frontline fighters for the war, you know.”

A glimmer of hope welled up in me. “So… I won’t definitely be shipped off to war as a genin?”

“Normally, yes, if your abilities fit the typical combat ninja but…” he paused, smiling. “You were never going to be the average grunt, I see.”

Affection rather than disappointment tinged his voice unlike my father’s harsh and unyielding stance. A warm feeling coiled itself around my heart.

“Close your eyes,” said Jiraiya.

I blinked confusedly, “Wha—”

“Just do it.”

Puzzled, I did as I was told. “I’m gonna scream if you do anything.”

“Goddammit, brat, will you just shut up for one second?” he scowled in distaste before taking on a gentler tone. “Now, concentrate. Reach deep within yourself and see if you can—”

“Feel my own chakra?” I opened my eyes and scoffed. “Yeah, I could do that ever since I was a baby. Having an adult mind kinda helps with that whole thing.”

Jiraiya looked to be genuinely surprised. “Huh. That makes sense, I guess,” he scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Can you manipulate it, though?”

“Kind of, not really…” I grumbled almost shamefully. “I’ve tried so many times but I just… can’t.”

Sighing, I looked down at my hands and clenched them before flexing my fingers. I shut my eyes again, focusing on the flow of my chakra, feeling the familiar and comforting sensation of it flowing through my pathways like a second blood. It streamed within my fingers throughout my hands. I pooled chakra around the tenketsu in my fingers and attempted to force it through but no matter how hard I tried, the stubborn bugger wouldn’t budge. The collected chakra simply melted back into the flow of my circulatory system. It felt akin to trying to get a firm hold on a wet bar of soap that just kept slipping out of my hands.

Letting out a growl of frustration, I opened my eyes and shook my head. “I got nothing.”

“What are you having trouble with?” asked Jiraiya.

“I can control it just fine but it won’t actually get out of the damn tenketsu,” I griped, clutching onto my blanket. “What am I doing wrong? Am I just too freakin’ young to be able to control chakra?”

“That could be possible. You’re not even five yet.”

“But Kakashi became a genin at five!” I said indignantly.

“Kakashi-kun is a ninja prodigy and you aren’t,” he pointed out bluntly. “Most children can’t manipulate chakra until well after five and even then, it normally takes a couple more years until they can properly perform a jutsu. The fact that you can even control it is an achievement in itself.”

My mood brightened at his praise. “So why can’t I get it through?”

“Chakra is a combination of spiritual and physical energy. I’m certain that you’ve got spiritual energy in spades but your physical energy most likely hasn’t developed enough in such a young body. Basically, your chakra’s too weak to be able to get through any tenketsu.”

“Fiiiine,” I pouted in defeat. “Damn this puny, useless body…”

“There, there,” Jiraiya patted my head condescendingly. “You’ll get there in time. Now, I’ve got to get back to Minato. Haven’t seen him since I’ve been back since last month—”

“Wait, last month?” I frowned. “But you never told me…”

The gears of my mind clicked into place as the realisation dawned on me. _That bastard… how could he…?_

“Oh shit,” he cursed at his slip-up. “Kurenai, I—”

“How long have you been coming back?” my voice became dangerously quiet.

“Uh, a year, I think? I mean...” he winced at his blatant lie. “Okay, maybe for longer than that…”

“What the fuck, Jiraiya?!” I screeched. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me you were back?”

“Well, we were too busy talking about you and your world and how we were going to fix this whole mess in our letters and it just… slipped my mind?” Jiraiya trailed off weakly.

“Slip your mind?” my voice rose. “HOW CAN SOMETHING LIKE THIS SLIP YOUR MIND?!”

“It’s not like I really live here,” he sighed, rubbing his temples and preparing himself for yet another explanation. “I never stay in the same place for too long and I’m never in Konoha for longer than a week, normally. The last time I was here for longer than that was when the second war ended and last-last time was before you were even born, for god’s sake.”

“But—”

“Please understand that I’m a constantly busy person, especially with the beginnings of another damned war!”

The rational part of me understood what Jiraiya and told myself to quit being such a whiny pussy except that I couldn’t help but be crushed. The only person that I could trust with my secret had let me down and I wasn’t even sure if he considered me as a friend…

“And I should feel sooo special that you took some precious time out of your extremely busy schedule just to see me,” I said bitterly and avoided looking at him, eyes downcast. “You could have at least told me after an entire year of goddamn radio silence. I thought we were friends…”

“I… I’m sorry,” guilt coloured Jiraiya’s tone. “But it’s not like you ever asked.”

An awkward silence ensued.

His words were like a suckerpunch to the face because he was right. Our letters were filled with my self-absorbed bullshit and not once did I ask him how he was. God, was I really that much of a selfish wanker?

_Yes, yes you are. Congratulations, Kurenai, you’re now both a shitty person and shitty friend._

“I have to go,” I swallowed, throwing off the covers.

“Listen, Kurenai-chan, I’m—”

“Sorry, yeah, I know, I heard you the first time,” I snapped in irritation, upset that he was back to using an honorific title again. “Look, sorry for being such a shitty excuse for a friend and… I’m sorry but I just remembered that I have to go and talk to someone.”

He looked hurt and abashed. “But you can talk to me…?”

“They made me a promise,” I climbed out of bed. “Besides, didn’t you say that you had to go back to Minato or whatever?”

I stormed out of the room without a backwards glance.

Hinoiri looked up from her book as I passed her study.

“Oh, Kure-chan, what are you—?”

“I’m going to see Inoichi-kun,” I called out, not bothering to stop.

It was just so satisfying to slam the door on my way out.

* * *

When I headed towards the front door of the main Yamanaka house, I really didn’t expect to be given the stink eye by the unimpressed face of Nara Shikaku after I rang the doorbell. It had been a couple of years since the last time I saw the suspicious too-smart-for-his-own-good teenager and he towered over me with his second growth spurt. His newly acquired facial scars appeared to be freshly healed and the uneven slashes only made him out to be more intimidating.  Shikaku leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms, raising an inquisitive eyebrow at the sight of me.

“What do you want?” he asked gruffly.

I put on my best ‘innocent little girl’ face and voice, “Is Inoichi-kun home?”

“He ran out to do some errand but he’ll be back soon.”

Shikaku didn’t budge from the door and continued to scrutinise me. The winter cold was getting to me and I suddenly regretted not grabbing a jacket before my abrupt departure. Shivering and clearing my throat, I looked down at my feet and shuffled them nervously.

“So, uh… are you going to let me in or not?”

He stepped aside at my rather rude request as we both completely demolished any polite Japanese social customs. I awkwardly stumbled my way into the house and was immediately greeted by a rush of warm air.

_Central heating, huh? Damn filthily rich bastards._

Kicking off my shoes, I took in my surroundings. The Yamanaka main house could appropriately be deemed as a mansion in comparison to the average Konoha household. I was met with a set of dark timber stairs heading up to the second storey of the estate. It was impressive enough to be in ownership of an actual house rather than a tiny apartment in Konoha, let alone a house with more than one storey. My family’s estate with its ridiculously large garden was proof enough of our upper middle-class status, largely due in part to my father being a respected jounin.

A stately portrait of who I guessed to be Inoichi’s grandfather and the former Yamanaka clan head hung on the wall at the end of the first staircase which directly faced the front door. I narrowed my eyes challengingly at the man’s haughty gaze which earned me a strange look from Shikaku.

“Do you want some tea?” he asked offhandedly while leading me to a more traditionally Japanese-styled sitting room.

Yes, this house was fancy enough to have a bloody sitting room separate from the main living room.

Surprised at his unexpected politeness, I nodded meekly and sat down on one of the legless chairs, sliding my feet underneath the kotatsu. I wriggled my toes in the toasty warmth and sighed happily, thanking the inventor of heated tables.

“I’m sorry for bothering you,” I mumbled as Shikaku poured my tea.

He passed me the cup. “A bit too late to start with all of that troublesome polite crap,” he said wryly.

A large part of my nervousness melted away and I gave him a small grin in response, taking a sip from my teacup. _Mm, jasmine._

A shogi board sat atop of the table with its tiles scattered all over the surface. I smoothed a hand over the pieces before grasping a larger tile that bore a hauntingly familiar kanji character.

“Do you know how to play?” Shikaku’s question snapped me out of my reverie.

I shook my head, “No.”

“Do you want to know how?”

“Sure.”

My newfound shogi teacher picked up his own tile that matched the one in my hand and placed it on the board.

“This is the king,” he said. “It is the most important tile of shogi despite its relative weakness.”

“You have to protect the king,” I said softly.

 It was the first time I saw Shikaku genuinely smile.

“Yeah. Exactly.”

Shogi was similar to Western chess in many ways but the main difference was that a captured tile from the opponent remained in your hand and could be dropped to be played against them. Even with a ridiculous handicap on his number of tiles, Shikaku still whooped my ass as a genius shogi master and had managed to regain an entire army. Chess was never really my forte back in the day. I didn’t bother to strategise and plan ahead or predict my opponent’s moves. My plays were made on almost thoughtless impulse and my impatience definitely did not help. Unsurprisingly, my king and remaining pieces were soon cornered.

“Stop trying to run away!” Shikaku snapped irritably, fiddling with my captured tiles in his hand. “It’s not like you could possibly outmanoeuvre me or anything.”

“Well duh,” I rolled my eyes. “I already lost after I made my first move.”

His brow furrowed. “Obviously but that’s not the point I’m trying to make.”

“Then what’s your point, Shikaku-sensei?”

His eye twitched at the title I gave him and I held back a snicker.

“My point is that evasion here is useless. There is nowhere that you can run to and hide.”

Groaning, I swept my tiles away from the board in frustration and crossed my arms.

“Fine. I give up.”

Shikaku facepalmed. “You could’ve won!”

“That’s only because you were going easy on me,” I scoffed.

“No shit,” he snorted. “But I was trying to teach you how to play.”

I’d forgotten about my tea amidst our game. Remembering, I took a sip and frowned. It had gone cold.

“You’re applying to the Academy, right?” he suddenly asked, as if immediately assuming that I was.

That definitely took me off-guard. “…maybe,” I ducked my head.

Shikaku regarded my answer and pointedly looked at me, almost knowingly. How I’d kill to know what went through his scarily accurate mind.

“You know, I could pull a shogi metaphor out of my ass right now,” he smirked, reaching over to pick up my discarded king tile and thumbing it thoughtfully. “Buuut I’ll refrain from doing so just this once.”

The appearance of Inoichi in the room was a welcome interruption to our conversation that was laced with subtext that hit dangerously close to home.

“Kurenai-chan?” the Yamanaka heir blinked. “What are you doing here?”

I smiled brightly, “Just visiting.”

“Man, what took you so long?” Shikaku griped. “I had to be stuck alone with this annoying brat while you were gone.”

Inoichi laughed and apologised for his friend’s rudeness. He never noticed Shikaku sliding the shogi tile back in front of me before sparing me a meaningful glance.

_‘Take care of my king.’_


	10. cyclamen (resignation)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurenai's first day at the Academy doesn't go so well.

_“Don’t be so selfish, you worthless, little brat.”_

With that last whispered taunt in my ear, I awoke with a gasp escaping my throat and a damp stickiness to my cheeks. My eyes stung with unshed tears of which I wiped away with the back of my hand, sniffling and willing myself to _get your shit together, Kurenai._ It was dawn and the first rays of the sun peeked out from the gap in-between my curtains. My blanket was tangled in my sprawled limbs from yet another fitful nightmare, another that I once again shelved at the back of my mind, away from intrusive thoughts. A deep dread filled me at the realisation I came to.

Today was the entrance ceremony, otherwise known as my first day in hell.

I guessed that it was payment for my second chance at life, giving penance after pissing away my first one. After months of stewing over my decision to enrol in the Academy, it became increasingly clear to me that I really did not have much of a choice in the matter. It seemed that my fate had been sealed with goddamn superglued pieces of duct tape from the day I was expelled from Hinoiri’s uterus. I blamed myself in part for this. Maybe if I’d acted just a bit less intelligent, if I’d actually studied my developmental psychology properly for my finals instead of procrastinating by reading fanfiction and having a marathon of _Friends_ …

My footsteps carried me to the kitchen table where I mechanically sat down and sipped the warm milk that I had microwaved for myself. I looked outside the glass sliding door of the patio into the back garden. The gnarled and thorny vines of the rosebushes sprouted crimson buds at the beginnings of their bloom, evidence that winter had long since melted away into spring.

“Good morning, Kure-chan!”

My mother’s fresh, smiling face popped into view as she entered the kitchen. Hinoiri was one of those annoyingly cheerful morning people who I wanted to sock in the face after dragging myself out of bed. She was practically vibrating with excitement on the morning of her daughter’s first day at the Academy.

I decided to entertain her parental joys in spite of my shitty mood.

“Morning, Kaachan!” I returned her enthusiasm with a feigned smile plastered onto my cherubic face.

I definitely felt none of the radiance that Hinoiri was currently bloody _emanating_ from her very being, her presence lighting up the entire room and overshadowing the shitstorm of negativity within me.

“You’re up early today,” she said.

I nodded, “‘Cause it’s my first day at the Academy. I don’t wanna be late.”

Hinoiri’s smile grew wider and she pecked my forehead before busying herself with making breakfast. Her mood was in stark contrast to her previous constant expression of weariness.

_“Are you ready for the exam, Kurenai?”_

_Her smile carried the strain of effort, something that appeared to be upsettingly out of place on her otherwise vibrant features. Gone was her carefully applied make-up, her kohl-lined eyes and rouge lipstick absent and replaced by a tired mask. Seemingly perpetual dark circles tarnished the usual brightness of her doe eyes._

_I wanted to scream and cry, to tell her how unfair it was, that it was never my choice in the first place._

“They made it for me, I never wanted this!”

_The words never escaped my mouth as I stared into the worn face of my second mother, the one who had eclipsed my first. I didn’t have the heart to upset her, after all that she had been through._

_I was tired of fighting._

Jauntily whistling and fully dressed in his uniform, Yoruo appeared in the kitchen at the very peak of health after his recovery.

“Today’s the day,” he announced, taking a seat opposite from mine.

After months of trying to convince me with my initial refusal of becoming a ninja, my father looked triumphant at finally coming to the day that marked his victory over my life decision.

As if I ever had a choice. The bastard had enrolled me without my consent all along.

_My father remained lying in hospital, drifting in out and of consciousness. I wished that he would do everyone a goddamn favour and just die already instead of leaving us in this painful, teetering limbo. The thought crossed my mind and disappeared in the instant it was conceived, leaving guilt leaching in its tracks._

_I shook my head to drain the feeling away,_ “ _Yes, Okaasan.”_

_Sliding my hand into hers, I hung my head in quiet resignation as she led us towards the Academy._

“Yeah, Otousan,” my smile faltered slightly. “Today’s the day.”

It was the perfect weather for such an occasion, with a cloudless sky and the sunlight bathing the skin in warmth. Families gathered around the stage to watch their kids be inducted into a system of village sanctioned murder. I recognised many familiar clans and my fellow snot-nosed classmates who would be joining me on this glamorous journey to death and despair. Jiraiya had offered to attend out of support because he knew that this was an ordeal and a half for me. I begged him not to come as it would only draw unnecessary attention to myself and he’d thankfully complied.

_Parents were fussing over their children, giving last-minute lectures and exam prep with the amount of notes being furiously read by young, attentive eyes._

_“I won’t wish you luck, my little waterlily,” she smiled, sweeping a hand over my head to brush at an unruly lock of hair that had strayed out of place. “Because I know you don’t need it.”_

_I rolled my eyes, making a gagging noise at her cloying words. “Thanks, Kaa—”_

_“Yuuhi-san!”_

Everyone expected me to fulfil my duty to Konoha with my sharp little mind, to follow in my father’s footsteps and continue the beginnings of some newborn legacy he’d built for the Yuuhi clan. Jiraiya’s association with me did not go unnoticed and Yoruo’s clique of ninja buddies had spread the word that his genius daughter had somehow caught the eye of an esteemed Sannin. My parents’ friends all patted my head whenever they met me, praising me for the genetic lottery that I had won of brains and beauty that I’d obviously inherited from my mother.

_I stood beside Hinoiri as she chatted to one of the other mothers of the bratlings, idly examining my nails._

_“I’m afraid that Fuguro-kun will fail the maths section of the test,” the woman tutted. “Not like Kurenai-chan, here, am I right? I’m sure she’ll get top marks!”_

_My mother smiled modestly and responded with light protest as the lady rambled on and on about my virtues in front of me while ignoring my very presence._

_“How is Jiraiya-sama? It must be so… so_ thrilling _to have—”_

_“I’m sorry to interrupt you, Tamamo-san,” Hinoiri bowed politely. “But I must take my leave and attend to my husband.”_

_A look of pity and unease appeared on Tamamo’s face. “Oh, yes… well, then, I’ll see you later. I hope he makes a fast recovery.”_

_“Thank you. Goodbye,” she turned to me before leaving and smiled. “I’m sure you’ll do well, Kurenai.”_

I had come to the realisation that my family’s reputation would be tainted if I deliberately failed. Japanese culture was just funny that way and shame was the ultimate agent of social control. I would be a perpetual disappointment hanging at the backs of my parents, a permanent black stain on the fabric of the Yuuhi genealogical tapestry. Even with my mother’s support of an alternative career path, she would have been burdened with the failure of her only daughter… so I succumbed to filial piety. I figured it was the least that my parents deserved. All of my planned escape routes seemed to end in some shitty conclusion but I could always weasel my way out of actively serving on the battlefield. Maybe get a desk job or a research position or something… hopefully.

Kakashi stood beside me with the rest of my classmates, looking unnaturally calm for a four year old about to embark on his life’s dream. Well, his mask practically hid his facial expression but I could tell by now that he wasn’t outwardly giddy with excitement.

“Are you ready?”

“Hell no,” I laughed shakily. “But… but I’ll be fine.”

He gave me a reassuring look and even went so far as to hold my hand, squeezing it briefly before letting go just as fast as he’d grabbed it. It’d become our equivalent to a casual, comforting hug. Actual full body contact was reserved for desperate times.

“You should be happy,” he said.

_“Kakashi-kun.”_

_He stood alone, perfectly composed and completely prepared as usual with his registration slip in hand. I didn’t even have to ask where Sakumo was._

_“You’re here,” he said with the slightest inflection at the end of his sentence._

_It was as good as a pleased exclamation from anyone else._

_I cracked a grin, “Yeah, I guess I am.”_

_“Then why are you unhappy?”_

_Nothing seemed to slip past him. My forced grin immediately dropped from my face as I avoided the question, sliding a hand into my jacket pocket and taking out my own folded piece of paper that confirmed my registration. I repressed the urge to rip it apart and unfolded it instead._

_“I’m not unhappy.”_

_The child knew that I was lying but didn’t comment further._

When I’d passed the entrance exam with mildly above-average results, my newly awoken father was disappointed because I had not met my potential and achieved the best. Kakashi immediately deduced that I’d deliberately fucked up my answers and was still confused as to why I’d sabotage my chances at second place after his perfect grade.

“Really?” I muttered, looking downwards and pocketing my hands in my pants. “Do you seriously think so, after what I’ve told you?”

“Yes,” he was resolute, like always.

I was about to make a foulmouthed retort before being interrupted by a latecomer who skidded to a stop in front of our group of orientation kids. Bent over panting, the orange goggles strapped over his head flashed in the sunlight before he regained his breath and looked up to a sea of unimpressed faces.

“Sorry I’m late,” Uchiha Obito grinned sheepishly. “I got lost on the road of life.”

I found myself looking at none other than the very individual who would one day plan to conquer the universe and fuck up absolutely everything for everybody, all for the sake of one stupid dead girl. His tardiness was a repeat offence of his and would continue to be so.

_The sound of sniffling and crying infants heralded the impending exam. A chuunin teacher appeared and began herding us into a classroom, guiding lost children into their assigned seats. He was in the middle of reciting the rules when a latecomer stumbled into the room, clutching the straps of his backpack and trying to catch his breath._

_“Your name?” the teacher asked curtly, clearly displeased._

_“U-uchiha Obito,” the words tumbled from his mouth in the same manner as his entrance._

_My grasp on my pencil tightened as I watched the kid make his way into the only empty seat in the classroom._

“Save your sorry-ass excuse, Uchiha!” I snapped.

I’d unknowingly clenched my fists, glaring at the premature antagonist in front of me. I couldn’t help but irrationally hate the poor kid. It already seemed like he was the bane of my existence, the very reason that I had this shitty obligation to change the timeline thrust upon me. Many pairs of eyes turned their attention towards me, shocked at my horrible words. Only Kakashi remained unfazed, too used to my many angry outbursts and frequent use of coarse language. Hell, he appeared to be amused and smirked in agreement with my public berating of the future mass-murderer. Obito visibly recoiled and wordlessly slunk away to the back of the group, tears springing from his eyes. I only felt a little bit guilty afterwards.

“That was very unyouthful of you,” Maito Gai frowned at me, shoving his abnormally bushy eyebrows in my face.

I rolled my eyes, “Whatever.”

My poor mood further deteriorated with the Hokage’s speech of the future generation, protecting the village, the Will of Fire, blah, et cetera, blah. It was far too early in the morning for such bullshitty propaganda. Everyone else watched, enraptured by his inspiring words while I gritted my teeth in a closed mouth.

“You are the future generation of Konoha’s ninjas. I hope to see each and every one of you in the years to come as graduates and proud genin.”

With his closing words, there was a round of applause from the families in the audience who all waved at their inductee children who were finally making their way to the classroom. My parents beamed proudly at me as I half-heartedly waved back and marched into my newest prison with my fellow inmates.

_“Pencils down, everyone. Your time is up.”_

* * *

I poked at the rice in my bento with my chopsticks, not feeling very hungry. Meanwhile, Kakashi was hiding behind a tree and eating his lunch away from the prying eyes of others, leaving his face concealed. He eventually reappeared with his mask back in its rightful place and took a seat on one the raised roots next to me.

“Isn’t that really annoying,” I asked, faintly nibbling on a piece of pickled daikon. “Having to hide every time you’ve gotta eat or drink?”

Kakashi shrugged and took out a textbook about chakra theory from his bag. “No, I eat quickly,” he flipped to a bookmarked page and began to read. “I’ll be able to do a jutsu soon, like a henge or something and make it easier, anyway.”

It struck me that he was studying a textbook that was years beyond our level. His eyes skimmed through the text effortlessly, picking up a few kanji characters that went unrecognised even to me.

My Japanese was worse than a four year old’s, even if he were a genius… dammit.

“Hey,” someone said.

Looking up from my lunchbox to face the newcomer, I half-gasped at the sight of my supposed love interest and accidentally inhaled some daikon radish which lodged itself in my throat.

“H-help?” I choked.

Wheezing and desperately flailing my arms around, Kakashi gave my back a good, hard thump and the piece of radish ejected itself from my windpipe.

“Are you okay?!” Asuma exclaimed.

“Wh-what do you want, Sarutobi-san?” I coughed, ignoring his concern.

He wrinkled his nose and crossed his arms like the little brat he was, “My name’s Asuma, not ‘Sarutobi-san’.”

“Okay then,” _Daddy issues, check._ “What do you want, Sarutobi-san?”

Kakashi snickered quietly into his textbook as Asuma’s eyebrow twitched in irritation. There was no way in hell that this kid would be fathering my child in the distant future. This ship just ain’t gonna happen, fuck the canonical timeline! Antagonism was exactly the way to go.

“Can I sit with you guys?”

“No,” Kakashi and I said in unison.

“But why?” Asuma whined, pouting.

“Because I said so.”

“But you’re the only ones who haven’t bugged me about what it’s like to have the Hokage as my dad!”

“For the last time, no,” I snapped. “Now piss off, you’re blocking my sun.”

At a loss for words, he stood there trembling in anger before spitting out, “You’re both stupid!” and storming away in a huff.

“He’s the one who’s stupid,” Kakashi muttered, flipping another page of his book.

I watched the rest of the children frolicking in the playground as I basked in the sun and slowly ate my lunch. A crowd had gathered around poor Asuma who looked disgruntled at all the attention he was getting. Obito sat alone in a corner of the playground, staring forlornly at his lunch. For a fleeting moment, I felt sorry for the little guy but was definitely not going to invite that monster to sit with us anytime soon, if ever.

The bell rang to signal the end of lunchtime and everyone began to scramble back into their classrooms. Kakashi obediently packed up his book and got up. I stayed behind, still playing with my food.

“Are you coming or not?” he frowned. “You’re making us late to class!”

“I have to go to the bathroom,” I waved him away. “Go on without me.”

“Fine but don’t be too long or you’ll get into trouble.”

Kakashi practically ran back inside the Academy to join the other kids and I made my way to the toilet block. The truth was, I actually did need to use the restroom but I didn’t plan on taking the return trip back to class. It had me bored to tears since I already knew everything they were teaching.

As soon as I walked out of the girls’ toilets while shaking my wet hands and cursing the broken drier, I found Asuma leaning against the front of the block. The little shit was stalking me!

“What the hell are you doing here?” I challenged him.

“Why are you such a bitch?” The word sounded awfully dirty coming from a five year old’s mouth.

I retorted, “Why are you such an annoying prick?”

“You can’t be mean to me. _No one_ is ever mean to me.”

“Wow, what a sense of entitlement,” I snarked. “Could I have expected anything else from the beloved Hokage’s son?”

“Shut up,” growled Asuma.

I pushed his buttons further, “Ooh, hit a sore spot there, didn’t I?”

“I said, shut up!”

“What is going on here?”

We both whipped our heads towards the authoritative voice. A very cross teacher stood with her hands on her hips, scowling at our misbehaviour.

“We were just talking,” I said.

“How dare you lie to me!” she shrieked. “I saw that you were both saying horrible, disrespectful things to each other. You two should be ashamed of yourselves. Now apologise immediately!”

“I’m sorry,” Asuma mumbled, looking genuinely abashed.

“I’m sorry too,” I sighed. _Not._

The teacher began to escort us back to class, dragging us by the arm.

“This is all your fault,” the bastard of a kid whispered angrily, a total transformation from his former apologetic disposition.

“Go fuck yourself.”

The woman seemed incapable of believing that the F-word could ever possibly exist in a small child’s vocabulary. “What did you just say?!” she stopped and gasped.

“Nothi—”

“Detention!” unfortunately, she recovered and her expression immediately softened while addressing the Hokage’s progeny. “But not for you, Asuma-kun. I hope that you’ve learnt your lesson.”

Asuma’s look completely withered, surprisingly, not at my insult but at the teacher’s blatant favouritism. I simply groaned. Kakashi was going to grill my ass about this later and I was certain that my father would almost blow his brains out upon being informed of my rude behaviour and of serving detention on my very first day.

...and thus, began a new chapter of the hell that was my second life.


	11. daisy (youth)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurenai makes a new friend at the Academy and does a fitness test.  
> \+ omake: thorns

“You’re really good at this, Kurenai-chan.”

I turned my head to face whoever had addressed me and fumbled around for a pair of small pruning shears on the desk. Shizune smiled, holding out a pair to me helpfully. She gestured them forward for me to take it from her hands, as I stared at her with a look of disbelieving hesitation. None of the other girls had ever spoken a word to me, preferring to avoid the hell out of my very presence. I could sense their barely repressed fear around me and hear their whispers of my “demon eyes”. It was rather amusing to be back in a primary school-esque environment and be on the receiving end of children’s taunts. I couldn’t give less of a shit about what they thought of me or anything else, though. 

I took the pruners from Shizune, muttering a thanks before turning back to my ikebana arrangement. Snipping a length off the plant’s stem, I carefully positioned the peony amongst my floral arrangement, ignoring the tittering that broke out among the girls. They were shocked at how anyone dared to approach “that scary, mean weirdo”. My reputation seemed to precede me, after I’d snapped at Obito and acted like a right bitch towards everyone’s precious Hokage spawn. It didn’t help that I hung around Kakashi who my classmates regarded as the standoffish genius and untouchable son of The White Fang.

“Where did you learn to be so good at ikebana?” asked Shizune.

I placed the trimmers down and swivelled around. “Why are you talking to me?”

The girl looked at a loss for a moment before shrugging and adorably fiddling with a piece her fringe that framed her face. Shizune’s hair was cut in a cute little bob with ends that grazed her neck. The child in me wondered how she’d look in pigtails, before I slapped my wandering mind back on track.

“Why can’t I?” she answered back with another question.

“Shouldn’t you be scared of me and my ‘demon eyes’,” I air quoted the expression with my fingers. “Or whatever?”

“Nope. If they’re scared of you, then how are they supposed to face reeeaally scary enemies when they’re ninjas?” Shizune smiled kindly. “Besides, I think your eyes are pretty.”

My cheeks flushed pink at her brazen compliment. “I think your hair’s cute,” I blurted out.

“Thanks!”

Our exchange left me feeling… weird. I was, admittedly, brooding by myself and resenting the bloody kunoichi classes I was being forced to take, not to mention the whole demented educational system of this godforsaken place. It brought out the social justice warrior within me, and I envisioned decapitating my teachers with every snip of my clippers. Then, Shizune suddenly appeared and completely shattered my sullen, introverted mood with our girly exchange of compliments.

Maybe it was the fact that she wasn’t a key player in my whole plan to change the timeline, that I didn’t have to worm my way into a friendship with her like Kakashi just to save the universe. I didn’t have her pencilled down on my “To Die” list, either… but she didn’t annoy me in any way and her friendliness was even endearing to me. Hell, I was strangely happy that she talked to me. Someone actually wanted to be my friend out of their own volition, and I didn’t possess any ulterior motive to go with it. It was an oddly unfamiliar feeling which I tentatively stepped forward and embraced, continuing our functional and civilised conversation.

“My mum taught me. She’s a botanist.”

Shizune tilted her head, “What’s a botanist?”

“Someone who studies plants,” I explained. “She’s obsessed with gardening and anything to do with flowers. She even named me after a flower.”

“‘Kurenai’…? Like, after a crimson flower?”

“Yeah, after some waterlilies she culti—…” I paused to find a simpler word. “Err, I mean, grew.”

That little smile appeared on her face again. “Shouldn’t you be called ‘Suiren’, then?”

“I dunno, she said it was after the colour of my eyes as well.”

“Oh, I see…” Shizune fidgeted and ducked her head shyly. “C-can I you ‘Ren-chan’?”

I shrugged, “Sure, whatever.”

“Yay!” she clapped. “My name is Shizune, by the way. You’re really nice, Ren-chan, not like what everyone else says.”

“No, I really am a jerk. I’m just nice to people who I like.”

Her eyes widened as if to say, “Me? You like _me_?” A small smile crept onto my face. I continued to work on my ikebana arrangement while Shizune watched attentively beside me.

“Shouldn’t you be working on your own flowers?” I asked.

“I already finished,” she pointed to her desk.

Her arrangement was perfect. Conventionally boring and uncreative but perfect nonetheless. Most of the other girls hadn’t followed any guidelines or particular style at all, and their creations looked more like gaudy bouquets rather than artistic arrangements.

“Huh, that’s not bad,” I said, impressed. “It’s too textbook, though.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t really put any effort into it. This whole class is stupid,” she scowled. “When would I ever need to use this as a ninja, anyway? Why don’t the boys have to learn this? It’s not fair!”

_Amen, sister._ “When you’re in disguise as a flower arranger or some shit?”

The little girl didn’t even bat an eyelash at my profanity. “As if that’s ever going to happen!”

Sighing amusedly, I took her hand and dragged her towards her desk. “C’mon, I’ll help you spruce it up.”

“You’re awesome, Ren-chan!”

* * *

 It was strange to have someone so normal as friend. I was too used to Kakashi and his quirks as a child prodigy or Jiraiya and his unashamed perversion. Sharing lunch with another girl and letting her braid dandelions into my hair like any other ordinary child was a jarring experience in comparison. Those small, child’s hands gently twisting my locks into plaits would soon be covered in the blood of the slain in a few years to come. As the rather morbid thought crossed my mind, Shizune let out an innocent giggle as she played with my hair.

“Ah, Kakashi!” I called as I saw him approaching.

The kid donned his usual black zip-up jacket with an olive green scarf draped around his neck. His trademark navy mask was in its rightful place but it didn’t conceal the disapproval on his face. Kakashi stopped and stared incredulously at the sight of me willingly allowing myself to become victim to another’s awfully childish whims.

“I see you’ve made a new friend,” Kakashi raised an eyebrow as if to question my choice of companionship.

I narrowed my eyes and gave him a warning look. _Be nice._ “Yeah, this is Shizune-chan.”

“Hi,” she waved. “You’re Hatake Kakashi, aren’t you?”

He crossed his arms. “So what if I am?”

“I’m just saying,” Shizune said nonchalantly. “Ren-chan’s told me about you.”

Kakashi blinked confusedly, “Who’s Ren-chan?”

“It’s a nickname after my namesake,” I said, plucking a dandelion and twirling it in-between my fingers. “I think it’s cute.”

Frowning, he took a seat in the unoccupied space next to me and hissed in English into my ear, “ _Are you kidding me?_ ”

“ _Don’t worry, she’s cool,_ ” I whispered back, making sure that Shizune was out of earshot. “ _Trust me, bro._ ”

Kakashi relaxed slightly at my affectionate title for him but was still reticent towards the new member of our exclusive little clique. He would furtively glance at her every so often as he pretended to be absorbed in his book. Shizune continued to hum an improvised tune as she threaded dandelions into my hair, oblivious to her suspicious observer.

One of my braids came loose, and a messy strand of hair fell over my eye. I picked up the dandelion flower that had fallen into my lap, actually allowing myself to giggle like a schoolgirl while handing it to Shizune. It seemed as if that was the last straw for Kakashi. He brusquely threw down his book and stood up in protest.

“Why do you have to act so stupid around everyone?” the petulant child spat.

Refusing to rise to the bait, I rolled my eyes, “I’m not acting stupid.”

“But you are! _You’re acting like_ _one of them._ ”

“Oh yes, announce that even louder, please,” I hissed lowly. “ _I’m sure the entire playground hasn’t heard you spew forth a supposedly non-existent language._ ”

“Ren-chan, Hatake-kun…” Shizune pleaded weakly. “Please stop fighting.”

Kakashi ignored her, “I thought we were… w-we were supposed to be…” he looked downwards and murmured sadly, “Did you forget?”

I frowned, “Forget what?”

“…nothing,” he sighed and kicked a patch of dirt on the ground, eyes still downcast. “If you can’t remember, then forget it.”

“What the fuck are you on about?”

“You should be in the same class as me. You’re better than all of the dumbass kids here and you know it.”

With those departing words, Kakashi bent down to grab his book before storming off, leaving me dazed in his wake.

“I don’t think Hatake-kun likes me,” Shizune mumbled. “He kept looking at me weirdly.”

“You noticed that?”

She nodded, “Mm. Hatake-kun doesn’t really like anyone but Ren-chan, does he?”

“I… I’ve known him since he was a baby,” _and as an adult._ I scratched the back of my neck. “So… we’re kind of like siblings, I guess.”

“You guys have your own sibling speak.”

“Uh, yeah,” I jumped at the chance to exploit the convenient explanation. “Yeah, that’s right.” Frowning, my eyes followed Kakashi’s retreating back as he made his way back into the Academy.

_What the hell was all that about?_

* * *

He was jealous.

The moment I came to this realisation was when I had dug my fingernails into the crumpled fistfuls of my exercise shorts, cursing the school drama I had to experience all over again.

“Why are you friends with the freak, Shizune-chan?”

Oh sweet baby jeebus, I’d become the bullied victim in a goddamn afterschool special.

For some inexplicable reason, Shiranui Genma had it out for me and took great pleasure in attempting to inflict emotional anguish upon me. I arched an eyebrow while the little asswipe sneered at me. It was surprising that no inanimate object occupied his stupid mouth and was gratifying his blatant oral fixation.

A brilliant insult just came to mind, and I couldn’t help but blurt out the words: “Shut up, you cocksucker.”

The children around me gawked in a shocked silence. Even Shizune had stopped to stare at me in disbelief.

“What… what does ‘cocksucker’ mean?” she tilted her head to one side like a confused puppy, and the innocence in her eyes almost killed me.

A bemused murmuring broke out amongst my classmates, all clad in their PE clothes. Gai was decked out in his trademark green spandex jumpsuit, performing gratuitous stretching exercises away from the assembled group. The strenuous sounds that he was making served for hilarious background noise as my classmates debated on what the filthy insult meant. Meanwhile, Raidou’s face grew red. He simply remained silent at his younger counterparts’ blissful ignorance of the true meaning of the word.

“You’re just jealous that she doesn’t hang out with you anymore,” I ignored Shizune’s question and glared at Genma instead.

“W-wait, that’s not true,” Shizune spoke up. “Genma-kun’s still my friend!”

“No, I’m not if you keep hanging out with Demon Eyes!” _Oh, the cruelty of children._

Raidou intervened, frowning, “Hey, Genma, isn’t that going a bit too far?”

“See? Real friends don’t just abandon you like that,” I scoffed.

“Ahh, Yuuhi-chan is so youthful!”

Gai had interrupted our little fight and in an incredibly surreal gesture, gave me a thumbs up in his signature nice guy pose. I had the urge to pinch myself to see if I was still rooted in reality and almost expected to see a sparkle emanate from his pearly whites, coupled with an audible ping.

Gai gushed, “Yuuhi-chan really does know the meaning of true friendship!”

“Shut up, Bushy Brows,” Genma snapped.

I was determined not to let this end in literal bloodshed and tears, as the previous incidence had at a certain summer festival involving a balloon popping game and a nastily sharp shuriken in a toddler’s hands. I was so over the angsty teenage bullshit of high school, let alone petty schoolyard scuffles.

“Oi, oi, what’s going on here?”

Luckily, our teacher returned with the PE equipment and promptly broke up the crowd that had formed. I could feel Genma glaring daggers into my back while the class was separated into groups of boys and girls. Shizune listlessly stared down at her shoes and was desperately trying to blink back tears. She looked so pitiful that I couldn’t help but put an arm around her shoulder and pull her close in a one-armed hug.

“Don’t worry about that Shiranui bastard,” I said softly, squeezing the side of her arm. “He’s just being an asshole.”

“I thought… I thought he was supposed my friend,” Shizune whispered, clenching her fists. “Why are people so mean?”

I didn’t answer her. When I turned my head, I spotted Asuma staring at me with a contemplative look on his features while he sat on the grass. He coolly averted his gaze when I glowered at him. _Damn._ I hoped he didn’t think that I was actually good enough of a person to associate with from now on.

Simultaneous groans erupted from the class when our teacher revealed that we were to undergo a multi-stage fitness test to determine our stamina. He placed a tape into a cassette player which I marvelled at nostalgically, remembering the crappy MIDI covers of classics on the tapes which my old parents used to play. We were then given instructions to run between two lines of markers placed on the field and to stop at the other side before a beep that sounded. Each successive interval of beeps was shorter than the last, and the runner was eliminated when they could no longer keep up with the audio recording. It was a throwback to PE in high school, and I was intrigued at how identical the tests were.

I watched in amusement as the boys began first. Most of these kids had probably never attempted proper physical exercise before, and many struggled to get past the third level of the test.

Well, shit… neither had I.

“Don’t be disappointed by your scores,” our teacher said in placation, after the umpteenth boy had staggered back to the sitting area and collapsed onto the grass. “All of you will improve by a lot with physical training.”

All of the civilian children were eliminated before the young clan members who managed to just complete the fifth level. They would have most likely already begun training with their overbearing parents, who were desperate for their progeny to have a head start in becoming trained killers. Yep, I daresay they sure had marvellous parenting methods in this universe.

Eventually, only Asuma and Gai remained on the field. The Hokage’s brat was breaking out a sweat and gasping for breath at the sixth level, while the green monstrosity was just leisurely pacing himself, as if this were just a jog in the park.

“Go Asuma-kun, you can do it!”

All of his repulsive fangirls cheered him on, while I rolled my eyes and focused my attention on Gai, amazed at his level of stamina. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d been able to perform the test while doing a handstand and still outrun the rest of the class. Asuma straggled behind and couldn’t complete the seventh level, failing to reach the end marker on time. Even some of the boys had joined in with the cheering and most of the class started to crowd around and congratulate Asuma.

“Good job, Sarutobi-kun!” the teacher clapped him on the back and recorded his score down on a clipboard. “That was an amazing effort, though I didn’t expect any less!”

“From the Hokage’s son,” was left unmentioned but Asuma caught on to the favouritism and his triumphant expression faltered just a bit.

While Asuma was being sung the highest of praises, Gai was left ignored, still running the course, utterly unfazed at the lack of attention he was receiving. He seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the physical activity, judging by the enthusiastic grin plastered on his face.

“Jeez, what a show-off,” one of the boys muttered.

“Yeah, he’s just wasting time!”

Expressions of disapproval arose from the class as Gai unwaveringly continued to perform the exercise, far past Asuma’s level which left us waiting for him to finish. It pissed me off to see his efforts go unrecognised, and I desperately wanted to slap the shit out of every one of those stupid brats.

“GO, GAI-KUN,” I roared, pumping up a fist in defiance. “Beat the hell out of the class!”

“Language, Yuuhi-chan!”

Ignoring the teacher’s scolding and the looks of condemnation from my peers, I stood up and continued to cheer maniacally, “GAAAIIII!”

“Ren-chan, what are you doing?!” Shizune pulled on my arm.

It seemed that my sudden outburst of his honorific-less name shocked the boy into stopping. The recorded beep sounded before he reached the marker as Gai swivelled around to face me with an expression of awe on his face, perspiration dripping down his forehead as his chest heaved in pants.

“I can’t believe it… that was almost a ten!” the teacher exclaimed, scribbling down his score. “Congratulations, Maito-kun, you just set a new record!”

Gai dashed over to me with all of the boundless energy he still possessed and threw his arms around my neck in a crushing embrace.

“Thank you, Yuuhi-chan,” he sobbed happily. “Thank you so much!”

Feeling the sweaty dampness of his jumpsuit as he pressed his body against me, I shuddered in disgust.

“Get off of me!” I yelped embarrassedly, shoving him away. “I was only being fair. You deserve more praise than Sarutobi and the rest of the boys combined, for god’s sake.”

“Such youthfulness!” Gai gasped.

The extremely caricaturised portrayal of him in the series seemed to be frighteningly accurate as he fawned over me, spewing flowery compliments for my support of him. Shizune sat beside me through it all, awkwardly twiddling her thumbs, and I swore she would have sweat-dropped if this were an anime.

When the teacher announced that it was the girls’ turn, I gladly scrambled the hell away from Gai. Our group was substantially fewer in number than the boys as we lined up at the starting markers on the field, waiting for the recording to signal. The beep sounded, and off I went, jogging to the end on my stubby child’s legs. In due time, I could feel my lungs begin to burn with each laboured breath as sweat poured down my back. I’d severely overestimated my stamina and it seemed as if I was running in a repetitive hell. Each beep made me want to eject the cassette tape and furiously tear out its reel tape in a large, tangled mess. Looking over to my female peers, a few of them had begun to give up, almost collapsing with the effort, whereas Shizune soldiered on with superb pacing.

I couldn’t handle it anymore. With one last grateful gasp, I stopped and doubled over, bracing my hands on my knees. Struggling to regain my breath, I plodded over to the teacher to check my score. He looked down at me and clucked his tongue as I wiped the sweat off my brow.

“Below average. Not even a two,” he shook his head, writing my pathetic achieved level down.

“Wh-what?” I spluttered, still gasping for air.

Another panting girl had scarpered over to the teacher who dismissed me with a wave of his hand. In disbelief, I walked over to the sitting area and crumpled onto the ground, lying on my back while clutching fistfuls of grass in my hands.

_“Below average”… I’m below average?!_ No, this was unacceptable. There was no way…

Growling out in frustration, I tore the blades of grass from their roots and sat up, inhaling deeply and trying to regain my breath.

“Hey, sensei, what does ‘cocksucker’ mean?” one of the children asked.

The teacher’s face combusted red with mortification, “Wh-where did you hear that from?”

 “Yuuhi-chan called Shiranui-kun it!” The little imp pointed an accusatory finger at me.

_Ahh, shit._

* * *

### omake: thorns

With her ruby eyes, pretty hair and ties to The White Fang’s son, Yuuhi Kurenai could have been the most popular girl in the Academy. If she had accepted Asuma’s attempt at a friendship, she would’ve been the envy of all the girls. Instead, she outright spat insults in his face and seemed to alienate herself from her classmates on purpose. Kurenai didn’t try at all in class and would frequently be the subject of scolding with the obscene doodles on her half-completed worksheets and how she substituted her desk as a makeshift bed. It was as if she would rather be anywhere else than in the Academy. Even though whenever the teacher forced a question upon Kurenai, she was be able to answer it correctly every time and immediately put her head back down to fall asleep.

So when the inattentive student had bothered to put the utmost skill and care into her ikebana arrangement, Shizune’s interest was piqued. The girl had her concentration fully immersed in creating an actual piece of artwork, delicately curling a leaf and positioning the stem of it in a glass vase. When Shizune approached her fellow classmate, Kurenai’s crimson eyes had surveyed her with a suspicion that reminded Shizune of a stray cat eyeing the offered morsel of food in her hand, just waiting for the unfortunate catch.

“Why are you talking to me?”

It almost sounded like an accusation. Kurenai’s air of intimidation had finally kicked in for Shizune at this point as she stumbled over the hypothetical sentences that formed in her mind, nervously fiddling with her hair. She dared to question the supposed demon who only shot back with another self-deprecating query.

Shizune wanted to laugh in response, “Nope. If they’re scared of _you_ , then how are they supposed to face really scary enemies when they’re ninjas?”

Most of their classmates were stupid, and Kurenai seemed to agree with her as a hint of an embarrassed smile tugged at the corner of her lips.

“I think your hair is cute.”

When Kurenai told her that her mother had named her after a waterlily, Shizune mentally disagreed. No, Kurenai was more like a red rose—captivating in appearance and disposition but protected by sharp thorns that warded others off and cut when you got too close. “Bara” wasn’t a very elegant-sounding nickname, though and “Ren” was just so much prettier.

The first time that she called her by the cutesy nickname, Shizune didn’t miss the way that Kurenai’s face lit up for a split second and betrayed her thorny exterior.

Dan-ojichan was right when he told her not to judge a book by its cover.


	12. gladiolus (determination)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sakumo is finally at home for once, and training hurts.  
> \+ omake: unsent

With one strap of my backpack slung over my shoulder and a hesitant finger hovering over the doorbell button, I paused.

_What the hell am I doing?_

The self-query seemed ubiquitous to all of the aspects in my second life. It had been over five years already, and yet, I’d accomplished jack shit. Jiraiya hadn’t written back in two months, Kakashi seemed to hate me, I still couldn’t release chakra and I was a goddamn under-average weakling.

At three in the morning, I had awoken in a cold sweat with my entire body in uncontrollable tremors. The nightmares always followed along the same thematic lines: my older self, two lifetimes’ worth of guilt-tripping, occasional death-related imagery and those godforsaken thorny rose vines. Every time I snapped my eyes back open to reality, my hands would rush to my arms to check for bloody perforations. I’d sigh in relief whenever my fingers would skim along unmarred skin, and I would curl up in foetal position under the blanket, hugging myself.

Desperate for an explanation, I’d devised some half-assed and tenuous theory that I was experiencing an intra-psychic conflict that manifested itself as my nightmares. Of course, Freudian psychoanalysis was hardly empirically evident, and it was just my wishful thinking… but I couldn’t really rely on science or empiricism anymore, anyway, since reincarnation apparently freakin’ existed with myself as principal evidence. Not to mention the whole magical ninja-chakra thing.

I didn’t know what to rely on, anymore. Common sense (whatever the hell that is)? The seat of my pants? The incredibly vague and probably non-existent Powers That Be? Fucked if I know.

Shaking my head and clearing it of all the self-doubting angst, I breathed in deeply before pressing the doorbell, ignoring the fact that the sun had barely risen. After waiting for a short while, the door swung open. Instead of being face-to-face with a chibi-fied Kakashi, I found myself staring upwards at none other than the illusive father of my best friend.

“Good morning, Hatake-san!” I chirped, quickly bowing politely. “I apologise for intruding.”

Sakumo smiled reassuringly. “It’s alright, Kurenai-chan. I’m guessing that you’re here for Kakashi-kun?”

Noticing the dark circles around his eyes with the faint beginnings of crow’s feet at their corners, I immediately felt guilty.

I looked down at my sandals and mumbled ashamedly, “Y-yeah… sorry if I woke you up or anything.”

“Not at all! I’m always awake at this time,” Sakumo said pleasantly, combing his fingers through his long, dishevelled hair. “Please, come in.”

_…he was totally asleep._

It was strange to be at Kakashi’s place with his father actually present. Sakumo loomed over me as an adult, and I was slightly intimidated by his overwhelming height, along with his legendary status.

_Gotta catch ‘em all, Pokémon!_

“Are you taking a break from missions, Hatake-san?” I asked casually, trying my hardest not to burst out in hysterical laughter while stuffing my hands in my pockets.

“A very well-deserved break,” he stifled a yawn while scratching the back of his neck.

I pretended not to notice Sakumo’s t-shirt ride up when he lifted his arm, exposing a hint of his ridiculously toned abs. My mind just couldn’t deal with the squicktastic fact that I was physically five years old and that I had just ogled my best friend’s dad.

Oh bloody buggering fuck, I needed to bleach my brains out.

“Kakashi-kun is in his room.”

“R-right, I’ll just, uh… I’m j-just going to go. To see Kakashi,” I added, flustered.

_Nope, nope, nope, nope… sooo much nope._

Frantically scrambling up the staircase, I burst open Kakashi’s bedroom door before inadvertently slamming it shut again. He was sitting at his desk with an open textbook as usual, though he wasn’t wearing his mask at home.

“What are you doing here?”

“Hug me,” I implored, dropping my bag and holding out my arms. “I need hugs, like, now.”

The child looked at me as if I’d declared my allegiance to Iwa and spat in the Hokage’s breakfast. I didn’t care; I was desperate for any sort of physical affection, for some form of reassurance that everything would be alright.

“I brought miso soup!” Hastily bending down to unzip my bag, I took out a thermos flask, unscrewed the lid and placed it roughly in his hands. Putting on my best pair of puppy dog eyes, I pouted. “Please, otouto?”

 “You’re bribing me,” Kakashi clutched the container, looking unimpressed.

I twisted the lid back on and snatched it out of his grasp. “Well, then, if you don’t want it—”

“Wait!” he panicked and grabbed my forearm. “I never said that I wouldn’t take it.”

I smirked knowingly and passed the flask back to him, watching him unscrew the cap on the thermos and give it a curious sniff.

“Does it have eggplant in it?”

“Uh, no,” _damn, I forgot about that._ “Sorry…”

Kakashi shrugged and blew on the soup to cool it down. Taking a sip, his eyes widened in surprise. “This is really good. Did your mum make it?”

“No, I did.”

“What? I don’t believe you,” he scoffed.

“Well, if you mean ‘made’ as in boiling water in a kettle and pouring it over instant miso, theeen…” I grinned cheekily. “Yeah, I made it.”

“…right.” His eyes drooped in disappointment. Nonetheless, he was happy enough to drink another mouthful of the soup from the thermos.

I took a seat in the other chair at the desk, wringing my hands. Kakashi thoughtfully offered the thermos forward to me but I shook my head.

“You’re acting weird,” he frowned. “Did something happen?”

“Had a nightmare,” I shrugged, yawning and feeling the fatigue of sleep deprivation set in. “No big deal.”

“It is kind of a big deal if you’ve come to my house in the early morning to bribe me with soup,” _Why did he have to be such a genius for a five year old?_ “You’re never up this early, Kurenai.”

I chimed, “Successfully bribed, might I add.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Are you seriously studying at this hour?”

“Stop trying to change the subject,” Kakashi grumbled, taking another drink of miso soup. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” I shifted nervously. “Can I have that hug now?”

The child sighed, put down the thermos and held his arms out in defeat. Gladly bounding into his embrace, I squeezed his middle and sighed into his shoulder.

“Is this about me being mad at you? ‘Cause I’m sorry about that,” he mumbled, patting my back awkwardly.

 _Not everything’s about you, kid._ “No,” I said, eyes drooping as I clutched at his shirt. “I’m just… tired.”

“How long have you been up?”

I gently tugged on his hair, eyes watering after yawning again. “Since three. Couldn’t get back to sleep…”

“Kurenai! That’s not good,” Kakashi scolded, releasing me from his reluctant hold.

Taking a step backwards, I stared at the look of disapproval on the young prodigy’s face. His brow was furrowed and his mouth curved downwards in frown, though concern was transparent in his expression. An unclean feeling slunk its way into my already frazzled being, as Kakashi’s uncharacteristic attachment to me became all too evident. Our ostensibly innocent friendship was all the product of my calculated scheming, of me taking advantage of his young, malleable mind and forging him into some ideal to save this thankless universe. My best friendship became debased at this disturbing thought, as if a dead fly had spoiled the miso soup.

“You can sleep here,” said Kakashi gently, noticing my troubled silence.

My smile masked any traces of the murky thoughts in my mind. “ _Thanks, ‘Kashi._ ”

 _“_ Call me that again, and you’ll be sleeping on the floor _._ ”

“No fuckin’ way, he couldn’t be growing a sense of humour!” I mock gasped as Kakashi shot me a withering glare.

He wasn’t kidding.

Dragging my limbs, I crawled underneath his blanket and ignored the Konoha symbol prints on the cover. The comforting scent of fresh linen enveloped me and I sighed, curling up while my heavy eyelids gratefully complied with their closing.

“Don’t forget, I’ve got your six, neechan.”

Kakashi’s voice drifted into my dwindling consciousness, and I mumbled an immediately forgotten reply as sleep overcame me.

* * *

 It was eleven o’clock nearing noon, and I was having a late breakfast with a bleary-eyed Hatake Sakumo. The legendary White Fang, still wearing his wrinkled pyjamas, nonchalantly sipped his tea and didn’t appear to notice my rapt attention towards him. I drank in his presence, marvelling at how Kakashi’s goddamned father, _the_ Hatake Sakumo, was sitting right in front of me. The almost fabled character then peered over his cup to look at me.

_Shit, caught._

He laughed when I quickly averted my gaze, cheeks heating up in embarrassment, and a sense of déjà vu overcame me.

“Are you enjoying your breakfast?”

“Y-yeah, thank you for making it!” I realised that I was still holding chopsticks and leapt at the chance to hide my face while scooping up rice from my bowl.

“You’re very welcome,” said Sakumo, grinning amusedly.

The bounding footsteps of a masked Kakashi hurrying down the stairs interrupted our lovely conversation. He shrugged off my backpack that he was carrying onto the empty seat beside me.

“I’m going to train,” Kakashi announced.

I put down my rice bowl and wiped my mouth. “Can I come with you?”

He pointedly looked at Sakumo, considering his father for a moment before turning his head back to me. “Okay.”

“Err, unless I’m intruding…” I bit my lip.

“No, of course not,” Sakumo waved us off. “You two run along. I need to recuperate from that mission.”

“See you later, Tousan. Get some rest, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. Work hard, Kakashi-kun,” he ruffled his son’s already unruly hair, smiling fondly. “Not that I even need to tell you to.”

My friend was about to make his way to the front door before he realised that I remained in my seat. Taking a deep breath, I got up and walked in front of Sakumo before looking up to face him, plucking up my courage and sincerity.

“I… I really respect you, Hatake-san.”

He looked surprised, as well as some other indescribable emotion for a moment before schooling a more neutral expression over his features. Nodding in acknowledgement, Sakumo beamed at me.

“I really appreciate you saying so, Kurenai-chan.”

Kakashi stared at me oddly, inclining his head to the side in questioning. Flushing, I grabbed hold of his hand and practically dragged him out the door with me, stuttering a hasty goodbye to his father.

“What was that about?”

“Your dad’s cool, okay?” I let go of his arm, feeling my cheeks heat up.

Kakashi groaned, “Not you too!”

“Shut up.”

In truth, I was afraid. Sakumo looked so disconcertingly worn out, and I couldn’t help but worry about his mental health. Was he already showing signs of depression? Was he actually suffering from any mental illness when he committed seppuku? _How the hell could he leave Kakashi behind?_ I shook my head furiously. No, Sakumo most likely thought that he was better off without him to shoulder part of the blame, to feel ashamed of his own father… his act of seppuku was performed out of honour. It wasn’t Sakumo’s fault.

It was the village’s fault for placing the mission above its own ninja which it treated like cannon fodder, like mere tools.

We reached one of the training grounds, and Kakashi froze at the sight in front of him. Gai was continuously kicking the base of a tree while bellowing out the number he was up to. It was already in the thousands when we saw him, and it didn’t look as if he were to tire at any time soon.

“It’s that idiot who talks about youthfulness all the time,” Kakashi hissed, pointing to Gai who was—defying misconceptions—not in a green jumpsuit. “I think I want to train somewhere else.”

“Yuuhi-chan, Hatake-kun!”

“Too late,” I snickered as the taijutsu prodigy bounded towards us, waving his arms wildly in greeting.

“What are you guys doing here?”

“Training, what else?” Kakashi scowled.

“What’s up, Gai-kun?” I elbowed the grumpy kid in his side and put on a cheerful demeanour. “I see you’re training hard.”

“Ah, you’re being so familiar already, how cool!” he glowed, clapping his hands together. “May I call you ‘Kurenai-chan’ in return?”

Ignoring Kakashi’s glaring at me while he rubbed his elbowed side, I smiled and nodded. “Sure, I can’t see why not.”

“Yay, Kurenai-chan!”

Gai returned to his kicking exercises, and we watched him for a while, impressed at his finesse.

“He might never be as smart as you,” I turned to Kakashi. “But you’ll never surpass him in taijutsu and brute strength, you know.”

The kid turned his nose up at me. “As if.”

“I’m serious. Gai’s an absolute tank. He deserves some respect for that, don’t you think?” _Tolerance, Kakashi, tolerance!_

He paused in consideration at my suggestion but ultimately dismissed it. “But he’ll always be an idiot.”

I sighed. Okay, maybe that wasn’t entirely false…

Kakashi began to practise his shuriken throwing, taking out the deadly, evil things from his holster in-between his fingers. I stood at a distance far away from within his throwing range before he deftly tossed them at a neighbouring tree and managed to not miss a single target.

Whistling lowly, I clapped him on the back. “Damn! That’s amazing, Kakashi.”

“Do you want to try dodging?” he offered boldly, preening at the praise.

I stared at the razor sharp implements in his hand and gulped as a bloody memory sprung to mind. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll use the wooden ones.”

We distanced ourselves and stood face-to-face with each other. Kakashi readily held out a shuriken while I took on a defensive stance.

The first wooden shuriken hit me square in the face.

There was an initial feeling of shock before the pain finally registered, and I reflexively clutched at my eye. It was tearing up out of its own physiological accord, but something welled up within me and began to surge out violently as I started to cry. My chest lurched with every sob that drew itself out from my throat as tears ran uncontrollably from my eyes, acting like broken dams.

“Kurenai-chan!” Gai gasped and rushed over towards me in concern.

Kakashi, still shocked at my sudden outburst, stayed rooted at the spot with his hand fallen limply at his side. The relentless sobs wracked my small frame as helplessness filled a well along with my tears.

“Does it hurt? Please stop crying. Everything will be okay, since the flames of youth burn brightly within you!” Gai hovered over me, flustering in worry and distress.

“I-I’m fi-fine,” I wiped away my tears angrily with injured eye still closed. “I-I ju—… j-just… IT DOESN’T EVEN HURT!”

_What the fuck, what just happened?!_

“I’m sorry!” Kakashi burst out, finally reacting and hurrying over to my side.

“I’m just glad that wasn’t a real shuriken,” I laughed shakily, placing a hand on his shoulder to both reassure him and steady myself. “Why do shuriken hate me so much?”

“Let me see it.”

Prying it open, and Kakashi leaned in to examine the damage.

“Is it okay?” Gai asked, fretting and being unable to stand still.

“It’s fine,” he concluded, stepping backwards. “It’s just kind of red. There’s no bruising or anything.”

I rubbed my eye delicately. “You can tell?”

“I don’t kn—… it looks fine, okay?”

“Okay, okay, I’ll just go see a medic if I start going blind in that eye or anything,” I rolled my eyes and winced when it hurt.

“I’m glad you’re alright, Kurenai-chan!”

_‘Useless, not good enough!’_

_‘You can do better than that.’_

_‘I’m disappointed in you…’_

The old, familiar taunts echoed mockingly in my head, and I gritted my teeth, willing the voices to piss off. I’d had enough of my self-esteem being torn to shreds, often by my own doing. Down, inferiority complex…

“Guys,” I steeled my expression, bearing the ache in my eye socket. “Teach me.”

The boys both stared at me curiously.

“What do you mean?”

“Teach you what?”

“I need to get stronger,” I clenched a fist. “I couldn’t even dodge a freakin’ wooden shuriken, and I got less than a two in the fitness test!”

Kakashi crossed his arms, clearly unimpressed. “That is pretty bad… but I’m sure you can improve.”

“Don’t worry Kurenai-chan, if you train with me, you’ll definitely get better!” Gai gave me a thumbs up.

Looking at the friends around me, a hopefulness soared within me. Gai’s enthusiasm was infectious, and their support was gladly accepted. I grinned and pumped up a fist in the air.

“Alright, let’s do this shit!”

* * *

### omake: unsent

Pervert,

Why the fuck haven’t you written back?! It’s been months… I’m getting worried about you, you idiotic, stupid sleazebag. What are you doing? Where are you? What have I missed? Any update on the snaky bastard or the ancient Uchiha dickhead with hate stuck up his ass?

The Academy is boring as hell. I’m pretty sure that all of my classmates hate me, except for some adorable little girl, a hyperactive “youthful” moron, and of course, the masked brat. I don’t think I’m cut out to be a ninja… I’m not really cut out for any of this. It’s not gonna be like some shitty _fanfic_ where everyone just automatically loves me, like I even manage to befriend Itachi and stop him from killing his entire clan or some impossible, heroic shit like that. I’m only a normal person, for fuck’s sake! How can anyone expect me to accomplish anything like that? I mean, if this were a horrible _fic_ , before I know it, my gross love interest is just gonna drop into my lap, be written into awful smut, get married, and then I pop out a goddamn kid or two in my ridiculously domestic life.

…fuck, even thinking about it makes me sick. I’M TWENTY-THREE (holy shit, I’m old now), AND I’M TRAPPED IN A FIVE-YEAR OLD’S BODY, ARRGGHH.

Anyway, I miss you and your ugly face. Please write back soon, okay? I need to know that you’re still alive. I’ll be reeeaally pissed off if I find out that you’re dead, erosennin.

P.S. Ignore the grammatical errors. I know it’s bad.

Red


	13. blackthorn (control)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> DEVELOPMENTS ERRYWHERE!

“Is that the best that you can do?”

Kakashi placed a dirty sandal on my back and pressed down, causing further strain on my already burning arm muscles. I cried out and turned to give him a soul-stabbing glare, clenching my jaw. He merely stared back impassively, unaffected by my withering gaze and pressed his foot down even harder. There was no sympathy in the little bastard’s cold, dark eyes but a cool resolve that only fuelled my desperate frustration.

“Y-you… Baka-shi!” I scowled, arms shaking as I attempted another strained push-up.

I sucked in a painful breath, struggling to heave my body up with the added weight of Kakashi’s foot. At that point, my arms inevitably gave out, and I collapsed onto the ground, panting and gratefully resting the side of my face on the field.

He tutted disapprovingly. “How can you ever expect to be good at taijutsu if you can’t even do five push-ups?”

The earthiness of the grass and my own sweat permeated my sense of smell as my chest rose and fell with each deep breath of air. Cicadas chirped in the distance, worsening the sensation of heat stifling my body. Shizune had joined in our regular training regimen and was throwing kunai at targets nearby. Each _thunk_ of blade hitting wood reached my ears as I laid down on the ground pathetically, trying to regain my breath. Meanwhile, Gai was running laps around the field with his almost inhuman endurance. We were on the Academy’s summer break, and training in Konoha’s infamous heat was nothing pleasant.

“I’ll get better,” I muttered, eyes downcast while sitting up. A growl started to rise up in my throat, “You didn’t have to push me so hard!”

Sighing, Kakashi offered an outstretched hand and helped me up. I patted myself down, brushing off stray blades of grass and dirt from my clothes. Sweat trickled down my brow, and I wiped the perspiration away with the back of my wrist.

“I guess you’ll never be good at close quarters combat,” Kakashi said bluntly. “Your physical strength and stamina are… bad, to be honest.”

“I never expected myself to be! Just wait ‘til I can use ninjutsu or genjutsu,” I grumbled. “Besides, there are a lot of taijutsu styles that use an opponent’s strength against them.”

“True, but you’re better off with avoiding direct combat.”

“Tsunade-bachan is really strong ‘cause of a technique,” Shizune piped up, walking over to us while grasping kunai in her hands. “Maybe you can learn that when you can use chakra!”

“You should never let Hime-sama hear you call her ‘bachan’. She might mishear it as ‘baachan’, you know?”

Whipping my head to the source of the new but familiar voice, my jaw almost dropped at the sight of Jiraiya slouched against a tree. The Toad Sage wore a typical smirk on his face, though his expression looked more haggard than usual.

Storming over to Shizune, I snatched one of the kunai out of her hand.

“What are you doing?” she gasped. “Ren-chan, give it back!”

Without hesitation or sensible cognition, I flung the weapon at Jiraiya, and the kunai pathetically hit the ground a fair distance away from his feet in an awfully anticlimactic fashion. I stood there huffing short breaths and glowering at the infuriatingly self-satisfied dickbag.

Jiraiya smug expression never faltered. “Nice try, kid, but that wasn’t even close.”

Kakashi and Shizune stared at me in absolute shock, in disbelief at how I’d just attacked one of Konoha’s heroes, one of the bloody Sannin. My brief spurt of anger quickly melted away into elated laughter, as a gladness swept over me from finally seeing my dear confidant again. Any pissy thoughts about the suffocating heat or my failed physical exercises were all but forgotten as I bounded towards him. I leapt into Jiraiya’s arms, hugging the shit out of him while he chuckled and held me like the child I was.

“There’s no way I could’ve hit you, stupid,” I drew my head back and grinned at his face. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Later,” he said, looking pointedly at the two kids who were gaping up at us.

The perverted sage placed me down again, and I re-joined my place next to my more age-appropriate friends.

“Ren-chan knows Jiraiya-san?”

“He’s my dad’s old friend,” I lied smoothly, looking to him expectantly. “Right, jichan?”

“Yoruo-san and I go way back,” he played along casually.

The awkwardness in our introductions showed, especially as I was trying to pay no attention to Kakashi’s suspicious looks directed straight at us. Eventually, we made the excuse of having “some catching up to do”, which totally didn’t give away any vaguely paedophilic vibes at all, coming from a shady guy in his late-twenties being friends with what appeared to be a six year old.

“Say bye to Gai-kun for me!” I said, waving to Shizune and Kakashi, who’d clearly picked up on the _sliiightly_ off situation.

Jiraiya and I walked away from the training grounds side-by-side, shooting each other uncomfortable looks.

“Do you think that looked kind of… creepy to you?” I bit my lip.

He squawked indignantly, tugging on the collar of his kimono nervously. “Goddammit, kid, I might be a super pervert but I’m not a paedophile! Dear gods…”

A wary silence stretched out between us as we made our way towards his house. We passed through the marketplace on our way there, where Jiraiya was instantly recognisable and mobbed by adoring fans. He simply lapped up all of the attention, especially from the ladies. My cheeks were thoroughly pinched and many autographs were signed, sometimes on a pair of “human canvasses” by the more enthusiastic fangirls.

It wasn’t until a concerned woman brought it up, “Do you know that man, little girl?”, that the weirdness resurfaced and I froze. Jiraiya was too busy flirting with some floozy to back me up, and I was left with the questioning adult sporting a look of pure disapproval.

“Jisan’s daddy’s friend who’s taking care of me,” the words spilled out of my mouth as I pointed to the celebrity who was blatantly chatting up a chick and ignoring the child he was supposed to be minding.

Jiraiya’s cheek was smartingly red throughout the rest of the walk to his house.

When we finally reached the front door of his place, I swivelled around to confront him in embarrassment.

“It seemed totally creepy, didn’t it?”

Jiraiya looked at his door and back to our position, realising how our current situation looked on top of everything that had just happened. The revelation then dawned on him in plain sight. I could see the mortification just seep into his eyes, before he groaned and hid his face in the palm of his hand.

“Oh shit, yeah… yeah, it did.”

* * *

I sat on the good old stool in which I’d spent hour upon hour rote learning hiragana. Those worksheets still haunted me in the form of kanji fill-ins.

Jiraiya’s place was a small house furnished spartanly. He was probably one of the wealthiest individuals in Konoha, and yet he lived a pretty minimalist lifestyle, forgoing material goods for all the perks of being a wandering hermit.

“How’d you know I was at the training grounds?”

“Stopped by your place and asked your lovely vision of a mother where you were,” Jiraiya sang airily, resting his curled knuckles against his face with an elbow propped up on his writing desk. “What’s on your mind?”

The sage gestured to my finger that I was unknowingly tapping on my knee. It unnerved me whenever people pointed it out that they could read my body language. Felt like an invasion of privacy, like they’d sidled right up to my thoughts.

“Why didn’t you write back for so long?” I stilled, no longer having the will to be angry.

“I’ve been busy.”

There was a hitch in the nonchalance of his voice and the shrug of his shoulders that gave away something amiss underneath his blithe façade. I couldn’t ignore the shadows underneath his eyes, the very familiar exhaustion in his overall demeanour that spelled out that sleep had been eluding him like the fickle bitch it was. Maybe I had been nursing some mutant semblance of tact or sensitivity, but my previous, usual blind rage that I’d usually fly into just wasn’t there to greet me with open arms. Jiraiya had obviously seen some shit during his time away, to put it mildly, and it was getting to him.

I hopped out of my seat and went over to him, resting my hand on his knee in a poor attempt at comfort. “What happened?”

“…I saw the inside of one of his labs.” _Oh._

Jiraiya’s body drooped, finally confessing to his underlying anguish. The haunted look on his face gave the hint that Orochimaru’s hidey hole almost definitely would have looked like something out of Unit 731, disembodied organs and all.

“It was…” the sage let out a shuddery breath, clenching a fist on his desk. “I couldn’t… I couldn’t believe it, Kurenai. I thought, I mean—… dammit, this was my childhood friend, my teammate!” He looked away, rubbing at his eyes furiously.

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” I breathed, helpless.

Jiraiya stood up. “I need a drink.”

The sage left the room, no doubt to raid his liquor cabinet. I sat back in my seat, anxiously waiting for him as the sounds of clinked glass came from the living room. He returned with a suspiciously unlabelled bottle of clear spirits and a single glass.

“What, none for the kid?” I cracked a lopsided grin.

He raised an eyebrow at me wordlessly while pouring himself a drink. Sitting back down, Jiraiya took a generous gulp of what appeared to be moonshine and sighed, “That’s the stuff.”

“So… what are we gonna do?”

Grasping his glass, he looked down at the alcohol. “You mean what I’m going to do.”

I guessed that I was just the useless informant.

Jiraiya basically quaffed his drink and slammed it back down on the table gracelessly. “Right… well, the laboratory’s still there since I’ve been monitoring its location.”

“And the snakey creep doesn’t know you’re snooping around?”

“No, I covered my tracks,” he refilled his glass. “Or I hope to the gods themselves, I did. Who even knows? From what you’ve told me, this kind of thing always seems to go to hell in this blighted universe.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised…” _Christ, did I just make Jiraiya genre savvy? How meta._ “So, what, are you gonna tell the Hokage and then take him out?”

More drink pouring. “That’s the plan.”

It all sounded too simple, too cut and dry. There were a myriad of details being left out to me but it wouldn’t make any iota of a difference if I were given a full debriefing, anyway. I wanted so badly to believe that everything would turn out all fine and dandy in the end, but we both knew that there was a real shortage of fortunate events in this story.

“Okay,” I swallowed, nodding with assent. “Okay, when?”

“I’ll inform the old man today, and we’ll go from there.”

* * *

The paper burst into flame in my hands.

I screamed and dropped the flimsy thing, watching as it crumbled into ashes onto the floor. Blinking frantically, I raised my trembling palms and found nasty burns singeing my skin.

“ _Holy fuck._ ”

My bed creaked as I sat myself down on it, still staring at my hands that were beginning to hurt like hell and alternating looks between them and the blackened remains on the floorboards. There was no expected feeling of excitement, no proud, profanity-laced exclamations.

Just… dread.

I bit back a curse as the scalding pain started to really wallop me after the shock, and rushed to the bathroom to soothe my hands under cold running water.

“ _Of all the goddamn elements,_ ” I hissed to myself, flinching at my sore hands. “ _I get the most offensive affinity?_ ” Shit, it wasn’t like I was going to be doing any nature transformation anytime soon, anyway.

After I’d wrapped my hands in gauze and painstakingly applied some healing ointment, the anxiety had nestled itself underneath my skin and had sunk its leeching fangs into my flesh.

I could finally use chakra… and things could only go downhill from here.


	14. philadelphus (pretense)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Camping trips are really not that great.  
> \+ omake: soup

Hate seethed with the girl’s every desperate lunge. I felt it sting with the scrapes dirtying my elbows—the consequence of being tackled to the ground, of being pinned down and dissected as a subject of childish ire. Our voyeurs leered on in gleeful fascination, while I lay there thrashing underneath the bitch’s almost deranged glower over me, the oily curtain of her dark mane skimming my face.

Put a bunch of little kids together on a camping trip, and a fight breaking out will pretty much be inevitable. What started out as a ‘friendly spar’ with no adult supervision had devolved into sloppy shitfighting, naturally. There was no referee to pry off the claws digging into my flesh or to silence the dogfucking din of my onlookers.

But there was no way in the nine infernal circles of Hell that I was letting this prepubescent bullshit gnaw at my already eroded defences. I projectile spat into the girl’s face.

“Eat shit.”

A disgusted shriek pierced my eardrums, and the bully released her hold on my bruised shoulders. I took advantage of the brief opening.

There was an awful crunch when my fist connected with the girl’s face.

Her cries were drowned out by the outrageous roaring of our audience. Slumping onto the ground, my opponent spat out blood while panting as she tried to regain her senses. I shakily climbed back onto my sandals, wiping the dirt from my face.

“You done yet?” I drawled.

“Not even close, Demon.”

The sneer that crossed her rather dishevelled features impressed me, as she struggled to heave herself back onto her feet.

Before she could stand up, my foot shot out and kicked her in the stomach. The girl gasped out in pain, and a shocked silence fell upon the crowd.

“Th-that wasn’t fair!” she choked, tears streaming down her face.

I licked at my bleeding lip and rolled my eyes. “I like fightin’ dirty. ‘Sides, do you really think that some enemy nin would play fair out there?”

The quiet rage that broiled within me almost had me surrender to drawing back my foot and kicking the living daylights out of the defenceless kid.

“That’s enough!”

A teacher’s barking voice reined in my violent impulses. The crowd had parted to make way for some flunky chuunin settling as an Academy teacher because he had a snowball’s chance in Dante’s Inferno of making it to jounin. Shizune and Gai flanked Kemushi-sensei’s sides, looking appalled at the scene in front of them.

The limp, muck-coloured caterpillar of his moustache drooped lifelessly above his curled upper lip.

“Why am I not surprised to find you, Yuuhi-kun, in the middle of yet another little scrap?” his words dripped with condemnation.

I didn’t flinch. “Bullies will be bullies, sir.”

What’s Her Face was still sprawled on the ground, crying.

Kemushi-sensei sighed deeply, his expression softening. “Go to the teacher’s area, Yuuhi-kun. You should get those injuries looked at,” he waved me off.

My faith in humanity was just a tiny bit restored at his sympathy.

Admittedly, I enjoyed beating the shit out of a few snotty kids whenever possible, even with restraint and interference from teachers whenever things got too rough. Hell, the fact that we were being actively encouraged to be pit against each other in the first place was horrifyingly barbaric… and fuckin’ awesome. There was a certain catharsis in landing a jab to a solar plexus or an uppercut to a cocky opponent. I never really despised violence in my old life, nor did I particularly enjoy it like some edgy, “Step back! We got ourselves a badass over heeere.” It was more like I was apathetic towards it, having never really needed to ever seriously consider it besides concerning fanciful hypotheticals. Excessive violence was stupid, but if it really came down to it, if it were necessary for survival?

I needed to adapt to live in this world.

But no matter how hard I tried, I still got the pulp beaten out of me whenever I tried sparring with Gai or other strong contenders for future taijutsu masters. I definitely wasn’t the best at taijutsu in my class, but I could still hold my own in a couple of fights, especially in disorganised brawls. At the very least, I’d significantly improved from the bottom of the class to somewhere near average, thanks to rigorous training.

Gai placed his hands on his hips, frowning in disapproval. “That other teacher should’ve helped heal you!”

“She has a point, though,” I shrugged, wincing when the scrape on my shoulder stung. “We gotta practice how to treat wounds on our own sooner or later.”

The adrenaline had worn off, and the real damage of my sustained injuries was starting to show. All of my bruises, cuts and grazes made their grossly unpleasant presences known underneath sterile gauze. My body ached all over.

“If only I knew healing jutsu like Tsunade-bachan,” Shizune pouted, lightly dabbing at the scratches on my cheek.

Smiling despite my injuries, I clapped her on the shoulder. “I’m sure you’ll make a damn fine medical nin someday, Shizune-chan.”

Her wide beam made up for the shittiness of it all.

* * *

We had to prepare our own dinner, which involved killing, skinning and gutting a rabbit. The various expressions of disgust and horror on my classmates’ faces, especially the civilian-born girls, were plain to see when our teachers explained the whole gory process to us.

“This is the easy part,” they’d said. “Catching your dinner is much harder, trust us.”

_Of course._

I guessed that this was our initiation to killing a person. You had to work your way up to stabbing a guy in the face, see.

The helpless ball of fluff lay squirming in my hands, ears erect with alertness. Wide with fright, its red eyes bore into me as the desperate squeaks of its frantic breathing reached my ears. It was as if the poor sod was aware of its own fate of ending up as skewered barbeque over a campfire.

“I’m sorry,” I breathed while gently stroking the rabbit’s dark fur.

Grasping its neck in one hand while supporting its body with the other, I cooed softly at the panicking creature. The ridges of its jawbone felt so small underneath my fingers, so easily breakable.

“Do you want me to do it for you, Kurenai-chan?” Gai offered graciously, holding his own limp rabbit by the scruff of its neck. His dinner dangled lifelessly from his hand.

An unsettling feeling of revulsion churned in my stomach. My own rabbit had settled down somewhat, its eyes having gone half-lidded, while the slightest of tremors made its body shiver underneath my hold.

“No,” I said, gripping its neck tighter. “No, I gotta do this on my own. Thank you, though.”

“No problem, my friend!”

Gai set his rabbit down on a log and picked up the skinning knife supplied to us by our teachers. I averted my eyes, ignoring the sound of tearing fur followed by the slicking of blood and spilling entrails while concentrating on my own task.

Grabbing the rabbit by its legs, I stretched its body out while still holding its neck and pulled sharply. There was a tiny, barely audible crack, and the job was done.

Letting out the breath that I didn’t even know I had been holding, I laid the body down some ways further from Gai’s own butchery. Shizune had already finished the whole shebang and was happily off to roasting her dinner.

A series of diagrams detailed the skinning and gutting process in an open textbook between us. The sick feeling in my stomach did not go away.

Needless to say, I swore colourfully and had to suppress a few wretches throughout the entire way. I also told no one when I threw my dinner back up in some bushes away from the camp.

* * *

 “—out of it, it’s just a nightmare!”

The clasping of a hand over my mouth muffled out my surprised cries. I shot up, shoving away the offending hand and glared at the Hokage’s brat.

“What the fuck, Sarutobi?!” I hissed.

Asuma put a finger to his lips, shushing me while pointing to the forms of our sleeping classmates. Giving him a dirty look, I threw off my covers to cool off the sweat dampening my clothes.

“Are you alright?” he asked worriedly, crouching by my side.

“I’m absolutely peachy.”

The boy frowned at my sarcasm, sitting down next to me. Asuma seemed to be impervious to the scathing glare that remained on my face.

I scowled, “Why are you even up?”

“I can’t sleep,” he shrugged, fiddling with the zipper of my sleeping bag. “You kept on whimpering and crying. I didn’t want you to wake anyone up.”

Exhaling slowly, I chased all thoughts of my previous dream, clearing my head. The stars were out, twinkling and seemingly mocking me. The fire had died down to dim embers, its muted glow illuminating Asuma’s face.

“You can cut the act, Yuuhi-chan.”

“What act?” I grumbled, massaging my aching shoulder.

He smirked, “Of being a cranky asshole all the time.”

Reaching up to touch at the bandage on my cheek, I grimaced as my fingers met with a sticky wetness.

“I’m not pretending,” I frowned, inspecting the congealing blood on my hand.

“Sure you aren’t. That’s why you’re all nice to Maito-kun and Shizune-chan.”

“Y-yeah, well…”

Asuma arched an eyebrow at me. “Well?”  
“Well, whatever,” I huffed. “ _You_ can cut the nice act. We’re never gonna be friends, Sarutobi.”

His neutral expression never faltered as he dug into one of his jacket pockets and threw a roll of bandages with some medical tape into my lap.

“You should change them,” he said simply, standing up.

 _Little shit thinks he’s smooth, eh?_ “I’m not giving these back, y’know.”

Chuckling knowingly, Asuma walked away back to his own sleeping bag, holding up a hand in farewell.

“Night, Yuuhi-chan.”

* * *

As soon as we returned home, I paid Kakashi a visit. He had recently graduated from the Academy, earning him the record of being the youngest genin in history at age five. Much celebration was had and lauding occurred, with the tiny genius eagerly basking in the glory. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to meet Minato before Kakashi was whisked off on his first C-rank mission. He’d hardly pulled his first weed or finished painting some elderly man’s bedroom before he was deemed competent enough to do some real shit.

Kakashi’s expression shattered immediately upon seeing me, after he opened his door.

There were dark circles underneath his bloodshot eyes and a haunted look that was stark upon his face. He was still in his rumpled pyjamas, despite it being in the afternoon which was completely uncharacteristic of him.

I stepped in and shut the door behind me. Tugging his mask off, Kakashi stared at me in silence, before stepping forwards to wrap his arms around me.

“Kakashi…?”

“I killed him,” his voice cracked. “He’s dead because of me… it’s my fault, I killed him, he’s dead, I—… I killed him…”

I quashed down the roaring injustice that fumed within me for the village that could do this to children, to force them to take another’s life.

He curled up in my arms, making himself smaller when I kissed the top his head, stroking his feathery hair consolingly.

“It’s going to be alright, otouto.”

There were no sobs, only silent tears tracking down his cheeks. I gently hushed him out of his self-blaming mantra and held the crying child tighter. Kakashi started to shake wordlessly, trembling as if he were beginning to crumble apart at the seams of his meticulously composed guise. His arms encircled me underneath my own, clinging onto me like a lifeline.

“ _Shh, I’m here,_ ” I murmured. “ _It’s okay, Kakashi… it’s not your fault._ ”

“ _I hate this._ ” Warm tears pooled along my clavicle while he buried his head in the crook my neck, still trembling.

I squeezed his shoulders. “ _I know, love._ ”

We stayed standing in the same position for a very long time.

* * *

### omake: soup

“Here you go,” she pushed the bowl of soup forward. “With eggplant ‘n everything.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Yeah, I did.”

Kurenai smiled warmly, her eyes radiant. He picked up the spoon and brought it to his lips, ignoring the burn to his tongue.

“You…” Kakashi swallowed, the savoury warmth bathing his stomach. “You really went all out, didn’t you?” The dirty pots and pans in his kitchen sink gave it away.

Shrugging, the shoulders of her oversized shirt creased. “It’s your favourite. Figured I’d have to learn the recipe eventually.”

He stared down at the rumpled sleeves of his pyjamas, sleep-worn. A wisp of shame curled itself inside him. What would his father say?

_“It’s okay, Kakashi-kun.”_

He shook his head, mentally reciting the Shinobi Rules, retracing the branded imprints in his mind.

_Rule #25: A shinobi must never show their tears._

The grip on his spoon tightened. Kurenai noticed. She placed her hand over his, and Kakashi almost squirmed out of her touch but he stilled underneath her concern.

“Hey,” she said. “You’re amazing, Kakashi.”

It was the earnestness in her voice that wrapped around him snugly. Anyone else’s placations would have either suffocated him, or skimmed off the surface into cold air.

In spite of her comfort, “No.”

“Yes,” Kurenai insisted with that tone of hers which normally would have been accompanied by expletives for emphasis. “You are.”

“…why do you act like an adult so much?”

That faraway look of hers crossed her face. Kakashi had seen it often, and he’d vowed to master a mind-reading jutsu just to peer into her thoughts. His surrogate sister was brash, stupid and seemingly ignorant at times, but he knew to look underneath the underneath. Kurenai was not an idiot, unlike a majority of people, but she was definitely not on par with Kakashi’s own intelligence. And yet…

“‘Cause I’m just mature that way,” she answered blithely.

He frowned slightly, unsatisfied with her response. “Then… why do you care so much?” _…about me._

Her answer came too easily. “You’re my best friend, Kakashi,” she said it as naturally as breathing, while his own hitched. “And my otouto. Why wouldn’t I give all the shits about you?”

Huffing amusedly, Kakashi looked down at his bowl. He stirred the miso soup around with his spoon, idly poking at the pieces of eggplant.

Why did he feel like she was hiding something?

“You don’t believe me.”

He nearly jumped in his seat, head shooting up to face her. Kurenai could be so unusually shrewd, and admittedly, it scared him sometimes. She was pouting with that expertly crafted and guilt-inducing, kicked puppy expression.

Kakashi groaned in annoyance, “Stop it.”

“Stop what?” an innocent lilt, but completely evil.

“We both know what you’re doing, neechan.”

Laughter shook her frame. Her seat creaked as she leapt up, thrumming with an uncharacteristic enthusiasm. “I should do the dishes.”

“Wait,” he stopped her. “Kurenai…”

She looked at him expectantly, crimson eyes blinking. Kakashi hesitated.

“Thank you. I… really appreciate it.”

“Anytime, _brother_.” A fond smile graced her lips, and he couldn’t help but return it with one of his own.


	15. mistletoe (truce)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obito, Minato annnd siblings bickering.

The blades of grass of the Academy’s field prickled the backs of my bare palms. An overcast sky lay ahead of me with not a patch of blue in sight. It was a chilly winter, and like most regions in my good old sunburnt country, Konoha was absent of snowfall. The Land of Fire’s climate was actually very similar to what Australia’s had been, to be honest—temperate most of the time, with a wicked heat come summer and fairly mild winters.

Shizune was lying down on the grass, resting her head over her hands and looking upwards at the same drab sky.

“Have you ever seen snow?” I asked quietly.

“No, but I really want to,” Shizune whispered, not taking her eyes off the heavens. “We should all visit the Land of Snow, someday. I read that it snows all the time, there!”

I grinned. “Yeah. Me, you, Gai-kun…”

Gai lay on the other side of me, bundled up in a green parka and a woolly scarf, having fallen asleep in his nestled warmth. His soft snores joined the whistling of a nippy breeze and the rustling of scant leaves on the mostly barren tree branches overhead.

“Hatake-kun can come too,” she added helpfully.

Laughing, I nudged her arm. “I was just gonna mention him.”

“…hey,” Shizune turned to face me, concern flooding her expression. “How is Hatake-kun doing?”

I’d confided in her discreetly, of what had happened. I kept it secret from Gai, though, as he would have immediately shown up at Kakashi’s doorstep with open arms, sobbing about bravery, youthfulness and what have you. The masked brat would’ve honestly showered me with shuriken after finding out that I’d disclosed his personal gooey, icky feelings to anyone.

“He’s acting like nothing ever happened,” I sighed. “And he’s constantly on mission after mission, nowadays.”

“Is he okay now?”

“He’s just trying to move past it, so… I guess.”

“How did you kill him?” was what I wanted to ask Kakashi, amongst other probing questions. He had spared me of all the gory details to my morbid disappointment, other than the fact that the guy had attacked him first with the intent to kill. I was bursting with all sorts of insensitive questions for the kid, but I’d sensibly kept my filthy mouth shut. The five year old had bloody killed a man… this was what it took to stay alive in this universe. I would have done the same in his position, without a thought for the victim’s relations or friends, without recognising the man as an individual with thoughts and feelings, or hopes and dreams. If my life had been in the same danger as Kakashi’s was, I would have killed him as well.

_Or so you say… I mean, shit, all bark and no bite, right?_

What the hell did Minato do after his five year old student had killed for the first time? Did Konoha offer any sort of trauma counselling for ninjas at all?

“Oi, you guys!”

Gai awoke at the shout, instantly leaping up from his nap and bursting with his abnormal energy. “I’m awake!” he bellowed, with a hand on his hip and the other pointing straight up in the air.

Aoba had been the one to call out to us. He was joined by our other classmates, including Raidou and none other than Genma, the Cocksucker. Rin was also among them, and a part of me shrivelled up, at odds with wanting to scream and shake her shoulders or get the hell away from her. I’d always avoided the girl due to my explosive tendencies.

Rin looked shyly at us, a polite smile etched upon her face. Her purple markings stood out sharply against her cheeks, framed by her russet bob cut. She looked so… innocent, so oblivious to the fact that she’d be the catalyst for the forecasted shitstorm ahead. I realised that I barely knew anything about her, despite her being a fairly integral part of the series, to put it in an understatement. What was she like, besides kind and caring? What was her family, or clan even like? What the hell was she as a character, besides a vehicle for the plot, some martyred icon put on a pedestal for… for stupidly blind love and hope and other fluffy shit?!

Shizune and I sat up at their approach.

I frowned in suspicion, quelling the baleful emotions within me. “What do you guys want?”

“We’re short of a girl to play Ninja,” I almost snorted at Raidou’s mumbled explanation. “So, uh… do any of you want to play as Tsunade? We’re doing the Sannin versus Hanzo.”

The nervous boy fiddled with the red strip of bandage over his face. Cocksucker had his brows furrowed with his arms crossed and kept sending glares in my direction.

I looked to Shizune. She had this hopeful expression at the prospect of being welcomed back to her old fold and of playing as her hero. It was obvious who the invitation was directed towards, and it sure as hell wasn’t Demon Eyes.

Clapping a hand on her shoulder, I said, “Shizune-chan would happy to join you guys.”

“B-but… what about Ren-chan?” she squeaked, torn between her loyalties.

I squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. “It’s okay. You can be friends with whoever you like, Shizune. I don’t wanna play their stupid game, anyway.”

The girl shot me a dazzling, grateful smile, “You’re the bestest friend ever!” and pecked my cheek.

Chuckling, I watched her scramble to join the others. _How cute._

“Hey, let’s watch them,” said Gai.

It was a total mockery of the war battle. I was certain that if Jiraiya had been watching, he would’ve scoffed and told all of the kids to move aside to re-enact the scene out by himself, with a lot of added embellishment. Of course, there would have been no references towards the trauma of seeing comrades being slaughtered around him like livestock at an abattoir.

“Help me, please help!” cried Rin as the captured princess, because they obviously just had to have a damsel in distress to be rescued.

I mock gagged at the entire act, watching in disgust as Shizune, Genma and Aoba—as Tsunade, Jiraiya and Orochimaru respectively—played out heroic battles with Raidou who was mature enough to not mind playing as the villain, Hanzo.

As I set my gaze across the Academy’s grassy field, I spotted a certain glum-faced Uchiha boy. He was still wearing those stupid goggles of his, staring sullenly at Rin pretending to be tied up and rescued by a gallant Aoba, while the others were slaying the evil Big Bad.

An idea struck me.

Nudging Gai and pointing at Obito, I said, “I’m gonna talk to the Uchiha over there.”

My green-clad friend cast me a knowing look of apprehension. “Please don’t be mean, Kurenai-chan.”

“So little faith in me, Gai-kun,” I scoffed, feigning hurt and clutching at my chest before letting a playful smirk show. “I promise to play nice, don’t worry.”

Patting a worried Gai on the shoulder, I strolled intently towards my target and plastered a friendly smile on my face.

Obito eyed me warily, almost recoiling at my approach. I couldn’t blame the guy; I’d practically terrorised him at the beginning of our first Academy year. He had been the unfortunate target of all my anguish and me being slightly unhinged at being forced to attend the institution, not to mention being stuck in a powerless child’s body in the Narutoverse.

“What’s up, Uchiha-kun?”

“Wh-what do y-you want, De-Demon?” he gulped.

I had to give him some praise for valiantly trying to keep a brave sneer on his face. Sighing deeply, I let my expression morph into one of guilt and remorse. Obito gaped at my countenance, emotions of which would have been extremely out of character for me in his eyes.

“I want to apologise,” I said mournfully. “For bullying you before.”

“…wh-what?”

“I’m sorry for being mean to you… and I know exactly how to make it up to you!” I thumped his back cheerfully, making the boy stumble a bit in shock.

“H-hey, I haven’t forgiven you yet!” he yelped indignantly.

“‘Yet’ means you will,” I grinned. “But I guess you don’t want my help with winning Nohara-chan’s heart over.”

“What are you talking about?!” Obito’s face had turned the shade of a ripened tomato.

I refrained from laughing aloud. “Oh well… I’m sorry for bothering you, Uchiha-kun. I guess I’ll be going n—”

“No, wait!” he grabbed the arm of my sleeve.

_Hook, line and sinker._ “Yes?” I asked innocently, cackling internally.

“I… I accept your apology,” said Obito, still blushing. “But how are you going to help me?”

“Well, I am a girl, so I know what girls like… also, I can totally be all buddy-buddy with Nohara-chan and feed you information.”

A wonderment dawned on Obito’s face, and he immediately began to fidget in giddy excitement. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d started to literally bounce up and down and flail about in light of this new realisation.

“Okay, I’m in!” he smiled broadly, buzzing with enthusiasm.

“Good. But I have to warn you that she might take a long time to come around,” I said, not unkindly. “And by a long time, I mean that it might take a few years.”

“I can wait,” Obito said unwaveringly.

“Also, you have to teach me your Uchiha fire jutsu.”

“Alri—…wait, what?!”

I shrugged. “Are you in or not?”

He looked aghast, but I knew that his love for Rin would win out against his loyalty to his own clan. It didn’t even take him long to think over his decision, before he nodded and held out his hand. Grasping it in a handshake, I smiled like I’d just closed a smashing business deal.

Okay, so maybe I wasn’t being completely honest. I did feel bad about teasing the poor sod, really. My petty feelings were my own problem, and I let myself take it out on an… _undeserving_ victim, at this age, anyway. Still, some of the irrational resentment I held for Uchiha Obito remained creeping underneath the surface. I just couldn’t help it. At least I was trying to make amends… with something in it for me to gain.

_Shit, I really am a terrible person._

“You won’t regret this, Uchiha-kun.”

“It’s Obito,” he said, suddenly looking ashamed. “I’m sorry for calling you Demon, Kurenai-chan.”

“Pfft, I happen to like the nickname,” I waved off his apology. “Makes me sound badass, y’know?”

Obito laughed. I froze as I heard the pure sound of a child’s laughter, watching him grin at me with all the friendliness and warm regard. How could the Curse of Hatred even be a real thing?

_Goddammit, Kishimoto. Could you have come up with a shittier explanation for the Sharingan?_

* * *

He was utterly gorgeous.

I gazed at his flowing, golden locks and almost lost myself in his dazzling cerulean eyes. He was also unbelievably young as a teenager and couldn’t be older than fifteen. Kakashi was making silent gagging gestures next to his sensei, though much of its impact was lost due to his mask.

I didn’t give a shit. Beautiful people should be appreciated, dammit.

“You’re Namikaze Minato!” I blurted out, starry-eyed.

“Ah, so you’ve heard of me,” he chuckled self-consciously, rubbing the back of his head and looking very much like the spitting image of his son.

“Ojisan told me all about about you.”

“Ojisan…?”

“She means Jiraiya-san,” Kakashi explained, rolling his eyes. “Her father is good friends with him, apparently.”

“Oh, Kurenai-chan knows my old sensei?” Minato’s lovely blue eyes twinkled. “What do you think of him?”

“He’s a perverted old man.”

Kakashi made a choking sound while Minato burst out in raucous laughter at my rather blunt statement. It was a good while before he regained his senses, wiping away mirthful tears as a few chortles slipped out from his mouth. My stick-in-the-mud otouto, on the other hand, looked horrified.

“You are so right,” he gasped, still recovering from his laughing fit. “That is… that is a completely accurate description of him!”

Oh my god, how could someone be so cute and perfect?!

“Minato-sensei!” Kakashi hissed, almost admonishing him for his reaction.

“It’s true, it’s true,” Minato insisted, ruffling his student’s hair. “If you knew Jiraiya-sensei, you’d agree with us, Kakashi-kun.”

He was steaming. I was half-expecting the masked brat to explode before he tugged sharply on Minato’s sleeve, eyebrow twitching.

“Don’t you having a meeting with the Hokage, sensei?” _Nooo, don’t make the pretty bishie leave!_

“Oh yeah, whoops! Shouldn’t keep him waiting. Thanks for the reminder,” he shot Kakashi a stunning grin. I almost swooned and wished that I was on the receiving end of that smile, instead.

“It was lovely to meet you, Kurenai-chan.”

“The feeling’s mutual, Minato-kun!”

That beautiful laughter reached my ears again. He waved and body flickered away at a spectacular speed, no doubt living up to his future moniker of Konoha’s Yellow Flash. I wondered when he would perfect the Hiraishin.

“I knew I shouldn’t have let you meet Minato-sensei,” Kakashi grumbled.

“Aww, is someone jealous?”

“No,” he snapped. “I’m simply disgusted at your behaviour and your weird, creepy thing for older men! First, my dad, then Jiraiya-san, and now my sensei?”

“What the ever-loving fuck?!” I screeched, absolutely revolted at the prospect of ever being attracted to the perverted bastard. “I don’t like Jiraiya that way!”

“See? You’re not even calling him by any honorifics!”

I blanched at my yobisute. “You know how I am with formal stuff…” I said, hoping like hell that Kakashi would take the bait from my recent example with Minato.

“Fine, but you still like my dad and Minato-sensei!” he threw up his arms in frustration.

“So?”

“IT’S CREEPY!”

We continued to bicker about my taste in men on our way to the training grounds. By the time we arrived at our usual spot, Kakashi was mumbling about how I was too young to be interested in anyone, let alone someone close to my age.

“There’s no harm in looking. I can’t help but appreciate beautiful people,” I said, sighing wistfully. “Alas, it is my only weakness.”

He snorted and threw a kunai at my head. Luckily, I’d learned how to actually dodge the most basic throws and ducked out of the way, scowling. The barrage of flying weapons continued relentlessly. Whipping out a kunai of my own, I deflected them all, the _clang_ of metal on metal being too dangerously close to my face for my own liking. I knew that Kakashi was going easy on me, though, especially as a stationary opponent. I managed to parry all of them in the end, save for a single shuriken that whizzed past, nicking me on the cheek and slicing off strands of my fringe.

“Well done,” he drawled, twirling a kunai around his finger. “You’re getting much better.”

Blood trickled down my face. I wiped it away, panting and grinning proudly. Praise from Kakashi was always well-earned.

He took out a med kit from his bag and quickly cleaned up my cut before applying a band-aid. I was used to the sting of disinfectant by now and being patched up by my friends. Before, back in my old life, I would have constantly whinged at the inconvenience of something like a small graze on my knee. Injuries simply grew to be part of my everyday life as a ninja-to-be…

Dammit, I was assimilating to this world, wasn’t I?

“Does it hurt that bad?” Kakashi asked, unsettled by the strange look on my face.

“I’m fine,” I brushed off his concern. “Now, teach me the clone jutsu, Kakashi-sensei!”

It was inevitable, I guessed. My thoughts were filled with the fading memories of my past life, gradually being eroded with time. I was only half-listening to Kakashi’s lecture of chakra theory and exactly how such a technique could replicate oneself.

Was it so bad that I couldn’t even remember my original parents’ faces?

Kakashi grabbed me by the shoulders, eyes narrowing. “Are you even listening?!”

“S-sorry…” I snapped out of my contemplations. “Sorry, can you explain again?”

He huffed, exhaling from his nostrils and retracting his hold from me. “The seals are: ram, snake, tiger. Repeat them after me.”

I did as I was told, carefully mimicking Kakashi and making the signs with my fingers as he inspected my hands closely. I’d already memorised all of the hand seals, but the meticulous little brat still insisted on checking.

Satisfied with my seals, he nodded and said, “Okay, now try the technique.”

The chakra within me surged through the tenketsu in various places of my body as I performed the hand seals.

“Bunshin no Jutsu!” Calling out the technique’s name was completely unnecessary, but the Narutard in me squealed a little.

There was a burst of smoke. I coughed as it filled my lungs, eyes tearing up before it cleared to reveal…

I blinked, waving away the clearing haze around my face. Kakashi stood aside from the whole debacle, looking unimpressed.

He shook his head and sighed wearily, “We have a long way to go.”

“Hey, the Academy haven’t even started on teaching us any jutsu yet! Besides, that was my first time performing it, ever. Cut me some slack, otouto.”

Kakashi frowned. “I managed to create a clone on my first try. Imperfect, yes, but I still managed to do it.”

“Not everyone can be geniuses like you, idiot,” I griped. “You’re such a bad teacher.”

“I am not!”

_Well, you were a constantly tardy lazyass who played favourites and couldn’t even keep the prodigal student from defecting, while basically ignoring the others._

Guilt flooded me as soon as I realised my thoughts. There was no way that I’d ever let that happen this time.

Smacking my cheeks and wincing when my cut hurt, I set a determined look on my face.

“Let’s try this again.”


	16. eryngium (independence)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daddy issues, followed by (totally non-suicidal) rooftop jumping.

"Kure-chan!"

Like any other lazy, insolent child, I ignored my mother's calls for me and continued to lie on my bed, idly flipping through another page of  _A Comprehensive History of Konohagakure, Volume IV_. Beside me, my dictionary lay open, accompanied by an exercise book filled with scrawled lists of unlearned kanji and other expressions. My current reading was basically a refresher of most of the Narutoverse's lore and history, complemented with some interesting extra trivia.

With the nonexistence of the internet leaving a gaping, soul-consuming void in my life, much of my free time was spent reading, training and hanging out with Kakashi, Shizune and Gai… but mostly reading. The bookcase in my bedroom was crammed with nonfiction, including books on chakra theory, encyclopaedias of jutsu, cultural studies and the like. I'd also raided Hinoiri's library of botany and other sciences, though I could hardly read through most of those due to their complex scientific jargon and multitudes of technical terms.

Footsteps reached the outside of my bedroom door. Hinoiri stood at my open door, arms crossed with a disgruntled, yet proud look on her face.

"You're as bad of a bookworm as I was."

I glanced up at her from my historical tome and grinned. "Like mother, like daughter."

Laughing, Hinoiri walked up to my bed and sat on the mattress. The springs creaked underneath her weight. I sat up and faced her.

"Are you sure you're going to finish reading all of those before they're due?" she asked, gesturing to the haphazard pile of library books on my nightstand.

"You offend me, Kaasan," I pouted. "Of course I am! Besides, I can always renew them if I don't, right?"

"Right, right, you're ever so confident…" Hinoiri bit her lip, looking hesitant.

Sighing, I closed my book and dictionary, giving her my full attention. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she said too cheerfully, in that tone indicating that there was obviously something amiss. "Oh, your light novel came in the post! It's downstairs on the kitchen counter."

"Kaasan…" I looked at her knowingly. "Seriously, just tell me."

"Your father is returning this evening."

My mood instantly darkened. Ever since Yoruo had forcibly enrolled me in the Academy, our relationship had been strained. He was rarely home, anyway, due to the impending war. It hadn't been publicly acknowledged yet to prevent widespread panic, but the upper ranks knew what was up.

Picking my book back up again, I drawled, "Great. So, when am I gonna get a lecture about my marks again?"

"Kurenai-chan!" Hinoiri tutted warningly. "Your father has a point, you know."

"You're taking his side now?!"

"We both know that you're very bright," she said placatingly. "You could easily be at the top of the class, Kure-chan… but, for some strange reason, you aren't fulfilling your full potential."

"Kaasan, please," I growled. "You overestimate me. I'm not like Kakashi."

"Of course, that boy is a once in a generation prodigy. Still… is there some reason as to why you're sabotaging your test scores?"

Hinoiri jumped when I slammed my book closed again with a steely expression. Internally, I was freaking the hell out.  _Fuck, they know, they know… how could I be so obvious?!_

"I-I… I DON'T WANT TO END UP LIKE KAKASHI, OKAY?!"

The sounds of my rapid, shallow breathing were audible in my mother's astounded silence. My skin felt too tight for my body, as my flesh seemed to prickle underneath the surface… shit, I was panicking.

"Kure-chan, you're shaking," my mother said softly, reaching out and engulfing me in her arms.

The floral notes in her scent calmed me down as I buried my face in her shoulder, letting out a shuddery breath.

"Oh, my little waterlily," Hinoiri crooned, stroking my hair. "You are nothing like Kakashi-kun."

"N-no… no, you d-don't get it," I gritted my teeth, clutching at the fabric of her top. "Kakashi i-is… he's so sad and lonely…"

"But he has you, doesn't he?"

I breathed deeply and slowly. "Yeah, but… but he killed someone, Kaasan."

My mother drew a sharp intake of breath. She had taken the bait, and I didn't even have to lie to cover up my panic of being found out.

"And his dad is never home, and he's just always on missions, and just… he doesn't know what fun is," I laughed bitterly.

"Kure-chan," Hinoiri detached herself from me, placing her hands on my arms gently. Her soft brown eyes stared into my own without an air of intimidation, unlike my father who would have been blowing a gasket by now. "Do you really want to be a ninja?"

"Of course I do," I said firmly without hesitation, not faltering in her gaze.  _I have to._  "Just… I just want to graduate with Gai-kun and Shizune-chan."

"I wouldn't have it any other way," Hinoiri took me in her arms again, kissed the top of my head and whispered, "I understand now, sweetheart."

Ha, if only she knew.

My mother's fingers entangled themselves in my unruly waves down my back, evidence that I was truly her daughter.

"Didn't you say you wanted a haircut?" she asked, combing her fingers through my tangled locks.

Grasping a strand of my own dark hair, I hummed contemplatively. "Oh yeah, I did."

My hair had grown to the length half-way down my back. Even tied up, it often got in the way of training, which was a right pain in the ass. It was definitely time for a trim.

"Well then," Hinoiri clapped her hands together enthusiastically. "Let's go and get yourself a haircut!"

My mother didn't know how to cut hair… well, that would be an erroneous statement. I mean, most people with abled limbs could easily cut hair, but Hinoiri couldn't cut a proper hairstyle to save her life. Plants she could trim and rosebushes she could groom, but human hair? A repeat of the previous incident would have me hiding in my room, refusing to come out until my atrocious cut could be fixed.

Hinoiri walked down the half-storey stairs like a sensible adult while I bounded down them with the grace of a raging baby elephant.

"I have to switch off the sprinklers," she said, hurrying to the backyard. "I'll be back in five minutes!"

I rolled my eyes at her retreating back, knowing that 'five minutes' would be more like fifteen or twenty. When I passed the kitchen, I did a double take.

Yoruo was sitting at the dinner table, well making himself at home and sipping his favourite kocha tea nonchalantly. His headband was as spotless as ever, the engraved Leaf symbol gleaming proudly over his forehead. A large tear was visible at the front of his jounin flak jacket, and the faded remains of dried blood soiled the edges of the frayed fabric. My father's piercing crimson eyes bore into my own which mirrored his, something that I knew he took pride in.

"Otousan," my greeting was perfunctory. "Welcome home."

"Kurenai-chan." His smile didn't reach the corners of his eyes.

I took a seat across from him. The garden sprinklers audibly turned off and left us in a discomforting silence.

"Okaasan was just telling me that you'd arrive this evening," I said.

"I figured that I would surprise the both of you."

My own smile was forced. "Well, colour me surprised."

Yoruo ignored my glib tone. "How is the Academy?"

I was prepared for the routine questioning, resting my clasped hands on the kitchen table. "Good. We've just begun chakra control exercises."

"Oh?" Yoruo raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "And how are you finding them?"

"I'm among the top of my class," I said coolly.

"Is that so?"

"Yes, Otousan."

"Then show me," his tone was stern.

My father stood up out of his seat before I could say anything else. He left the room, only to return shortly with a small piece of paper. Yoruo presented the torn square to me, leaving me with no way to refuse him. Gone were the days where I could get away with my childishly defiant outbursts. I had learned that the hard way, not long after I'd started attending the Academy.

It was true that I didn't bother hiding my unusually honed chakra control in class. The smug part of me revelled in having something that I could finally be recognised for. It wouldn't hurt to stand out in at least one thing, right?

Taking the slip of paper from Yoruo's hand, I pressed it against my forehead and began to mould and release just that sweet amount of chakra. The paper adhered itself firmly to my skin, and I let myself smirk in front of my father. Normally, a leaf was used for this concentration exercise in class. However, I'd long mastered it beforehand, with a wide variety of objects and on different areas of the body. Jiraiya had recommended the exercise to me as soon as I could release chakra, and I'd practised it obsessively.

"Very good," Yoruo said impassively. "Now let's see how long you can keep it there."

"Yoruo!" Hinoiri was at the kitchen door, grinning widely while holding a bucket full of freshly cut gardenias.

At my mother's appearance, he immediately brightened, looking like the father I once knew in my infancy. My father stood up and genuinely beamed.

"Let me take that for you," he grasped the bucket handle.

Her eyes shone. "I thought you were coming later."

"Surprise," Yoruo winked.

Not being able to tolerate the grossness of my parents' flirting or Yoruo's sudden change of character, I made a disgusted noise under my breath.

"I'll be upstairs if you need me," I said, pushing past my mother.

When I reached my room, I slumped onto my bed, growling. Stopping the flow of chakra to my forehead, the piece of paper fell into my lap. I picked it up and looked at it scornfully, scrunching it up in my fist before throwing it to the ground next to my bed.

" _Fuck him,_ " I snarled quietly to myself, snapping the historical volume back open. " _That bastard's not even my real dad._ "

_It's not as if your real dad was that much better._

The shoddy pencil in my grip was bending ever so slightly. Ignoring my stewing thoughts, I threw myself into the comfort of my studies. At least I could place my trust in facts and figures.

* * *

Six years had passed since my previous life's end, and my memories were gradually decaying. Little details eluded me, such as my former friends' birthdays, what street my older sister used to live on, the smell of plum sauce with roast duck on the dinner table… more importantly, my knowledge of  _Naruto_ 's plotline was definitely fading. Luckily, I had written out everything I remembered in English as soon as I could pick up a pencil. The book was well within reach, stored in a locked drawer of my study.

Jiraiya also had his notes, so such precious canon fuckery was preserved. The super pervert still hadn't gotten back to me yet. He had gone AWOL yet again, with no word about Orochimaru. I assumed that he was off on some other covert spying mission or whatever, and was just an inconsiderate jerk as usual to not warn me beforehand.

It was still unnerving to experience my own failing memory.

"Don't do it," Shizune pleaded, gripping onto my arm. "Ren, you could kill yourself!"

The wind whipped through my shortened hair. Kakashi stood on the rooftop across from me, looking at me challengingly.

"Don't worry, Kurenai-chan," Gai yelled up from the ground below, giving me a thumbs up. "I will catch you if you fall!"

"Don't encourage her!" shrieked Shizune angrily. "You're all so stupid and crazy!"

My vision began to swim as I peered over the edge of the roof. The ground seemed so far away from where I was standing. If I fell, I would definitely injure myself and break something fairly important.

"I know you can do it!" Kakashi called from his position. "Your chakra control is already acceptable."

I gulped as I judged the distance from the apartment complex I was standing on and the roof across from me. It was about three metres apart in distance. The jump was impossible to make without the assistance of chakra.

Shizune pulled me backwards. "You can back out of this now before you're badly hurt!"

_No._  I looked at her and grinned wildly. "I gotta make new memories, Shizune."

Disregarding the puzzled look on her face, I sucked in a giant breath and sprinted across the roof.

"REN!"

Shizune's scream went ignored as I gathered chakra and concentrated it on the bottom of my feet, leaping off the edge. I could feel my heart battering my ribcage as I soared through the air, the wind rushing against me with Gai's whooping in the background. Kakashi's form grew closer, and he stepped forwards to brace my landing. In only a brief couple of seconds, I'd traversed over rooftops and stumbled safely into Kakashi's arms.

"Told you," he smirked, letting me go.

"HOLY CRAP!" a foreign voice shouted from the ground.

"HELL YEAH!" I roared triumphantly, throwing up my arms with clenched fists. "Did you see that? I DID IT! That was one of the awesomest things I've ever—"

"You still could've died!" yelled Shizune, shooting me a dirty look before hurrying down the emergency stairs of the apartment building.

"More importantly, what is  _he_  doing here?" Kakashi pointed disdainfully to the small Uchiha on the ground below us.

"What the hell are you doing here, Obito-kun?!" I yelled back, my pulse still racing as adrenaline coursed through me.

I yelped in surprise as Kakashi scooped me up in a princess hold. "W-wait, what are you d—?"

My screams filled the air as my friend casually leapt off of the building, carrying me in his puny arms. Much profanity was shouted, and many cringes were had by the recipients of my piercing expletives. I was still expelling my lungs when we reached the ground with Kakashi landing as safely and softly as a proud little baby bird.

I continued to shriek, "YOU LITTLE SHIT!"

The old insult turned almost term of endearment simply left the masked brat unfazed. He coolly arched a silvery brow and looked at me as if an unimpressed older sibling would to a younger's usual antics. The role reversal was annoying.

"Are you done screaming yet?"

My berating of his foolishly reckless and self-indulgent bullshit died down to a mutter, "…show-off." I impishly stuck my tongue out at Kakashi, who smirked and placed me down. Standing up unsteadily, I sucked in a breath and paid no attention to Obito's spluttering laughter at me. Gai's eyes burned with the intense flames of rivalry and something akin to near jealous respect.

"What are you doing here?" my brother glared at Obito.

He abruptly stopped chortling and crossed his arms, ignoring Kakashi's jab. "Did you forget our deal?"

Gai gasped excitedly, "Kurenai-chan is friends with Uchiha-kun now?" My personal growth was always fascinatingly youthful to him.

"What deal?" Kakashi asked… more like demanded, suspiciously.

"Oh, Obito-kun just—"

"That is between me and Kurenai-chan!" he cut in, blushing to the tips of his roots.

Before Obito could elaborate any further, Shizune pushed the boys aside and threw her arms around me.

"You're a complete dumbass," she sniffled, borrowing one of my oft-repeated insults.

I patted her head, smiling fondly. "There, there… I'm still alive, aren't I? Oh, by the way, guys…" Our classmates couldn't know about my advanced chakra control, and I needed to hammer down the teensy protruding nail. "Don't go spreading my rooftop jumping around, okay?"

Kakashi rolled his eyes, still not understanding my strange need to hide my abilities while Shizune withdrew from me. The rest of the group looked confused.

"But why? Everyone will be really impressed, Kurenai-chan!" Gai piped up.

I made the crappy excuse of, "I don't like being the centre of attention… especially from bullies.", and the topic was immediately dropped.

"How did you know we were here, Obito-kun?" asked Shizune, breaking the silence.

"I… followed you guys?" Obito grinned sheepishly, nervously adjusting the goggles on his forehead. "I saw you at the training grounds and I—"

"—stalked us," Kakashi finished lamely. Ever the antagonist, the young genin stabbed the kunai in further, "Your clan would be so proud of you, Uchiha."

I smacked my bro lightly on the arm scoldingly. "Don't be so rude, otouto."

"…you're one to talk, Ren," Shizune said flatly.

"Hey, I've gotten nicer!"

"Yes, Kurenai-chan has become much more youthful lately!"

"ANYWAY," Obito continued, scowling at his all too hateful shitslinger. "Our deal?"

"Oh right, yeah," I flapped a hand. "Don't worry, I'm on it."

"Okay then," he looked mildly appeased at my response. "I'll talk to you at the Academy?"

"See you in class, Obito-kun!"

I waved to him as he departed with a, "Nice haircut, by the way!" Gai and Shizune also said their friendly goodbyes, whereas Kakashi merely stared at me as if I'd just sprouted nine tails and was planning to rampage Konoha. Groaning internally, I realised that I was in for a massively grating interrogation later.

Desperate to change the subject, I clapped my hands together enthusiastically and chirped, "So, lunch, anybody?"

"Yay!" Gai cheered, doing a happy dance.

Shizune huffed her agreement voicelessly, still mad at me about the whole pseudo-suicidal rooftop jumping thing. I made a mental note not to inform her of my later plans involving the same spectacle with Kakashi.

"Ah, I heard that a new stall just opened up!" grabbing hold of Kakashi's arm, I started to drag him towards it.

"You will explain whatever's happening between you and the Uchiha," he grumbled, reluctantly following my lead. "Or I'll stop helping you train."

The threat was very real. "…fine, I'll tell you later."

"Where are we going, anyway?" Kakashi sighed irritatedly.

"To Ichiraku Ramen!"


	17. aster (surprise)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gai, girly bonding and an unexpected surprise.

I awoke to the pitter-pattering of rain outside and the rustling of sheets beside my bed. My room was cast in a grey dimness, from the curtains that were still closed and the dull, muted sky. Sighing as I heaved myself up, I turned towards the source of the noise and came face-to-face with Gai having roused from his futon.

"Good morning, Kure—…" he stopped, immediately hushing his voice upon seeing my bleary-eyed face. "I'm really sorry! Did I wake you up, Kurenai-chan?"

The six year old was wearing his mint coloured pyjamas, patterned with bright red tortoises.

"Yeah, you did," I let out a long yawn, rubbing my eyes. "What time is it?"

"It's six o'clock."

Looking at the bedside alarm clock for confirmation, I flopped back onto the mattress and curled up on my side, closing my eyes tiredly.

I groaned, "That's way too goddamn early."

Gai ignored me and started doing push-ups on the floor. I buried my face in my pillow, trying to muffle out the sounds of his exertion. His father, Maito Dai the Eternal Genin, was on his month-long courier duty for the forces out in some regional area or whatever. The poor sod's son was therefore left all on his lonesome, and a lonely Gai was a restless little shit. I'd had to deal with his spontaneous sleepovers more often than usual, though I realised that it was actually the first time I ever spent any extended periods of time with him in singular company.

"Could you do that outside," I grumbled into the pillow. "Or actually study for once?"

"You should really wake up," he huffed, way too cheerful for someone awake at such an ungodly hour. "Besides, it's raining."

"…Gai, I say this in the nicest of ways: please shut the fuck up."

He winced briefly at my rudeness—the downturned twitch of his lips making me feel ashamed for only a moment—but did not waver in his exercise. "I know you're just always in a grumpy mood at this time of day, Kurenai-chan."

The kid knew me too well.

Muttering my profane grievances, I snuggled into the bed and whined, indulging in my childishness. "I don't wanna go to the Academy…"

"But you have to!" Gai insisted, having moved on to one-armed push-ups. "As your loyal friend, I will not let you skip class."

"But I already know everythiiiinngg."

"You acting like a kid is kind of weird… no offence, of course!"

Whenever we were alone, his usual youthful exuberance became a bit toned down. Sure, he was still his hyperactive old self, but Gai seemed to evolve into some three-dimensional person instead of a walking caricature. I saw the other facets to his character: his insecurities about others' opinions of him, some flashes of insightfulness, a capacity to actually shut up for longer than five minutes… Gai wasn't a total moron; he just wasn't studious. His academic grades were pretty much at the bottom of the class, whereas his physical skills were remarkable. The guy may appear as dumb muscle, but I knew better than that.

A silence settled over the room. My hypothalamus, the sneaky bastard, betrayed me and my eyelids fluttered closed, consciousness slowly dwindling as my hearing dulled. Letting my body sink into the mattress, I sighed and let the cloud of sleep overtake—…

—screaming, as the icy and wet sensation literally splashed me in the face. I jolted fully awake.

"GODDAMMIT, GAI!" I roared, furiously shaking the wet droplets away from my dripping hair like a mad dog.

The little culprit stood aside my bed in his childish pyjamas. He grinned wildly while clutching an empty glass.

"I see you're finally awake!"

I tried really hard not to launch at him and strangle him to death.

* * *

Upon entering the classroom, my eyes searched out for a certain linchpin in my plans against world destruction. I immediately spied Rin sitting at her usual spot right at the front amongst the other girls for kunoichi studies. Target in sight, I sidled up next to her in the adjacent desk. Of course, I went about it in a more casual, less predatory and stalker-ish way. My seat creaked as I settled into it, though Rin remained focused on the chakra theory worksheet in front of her, not sparing me a single glance. She started to tap at the paper with her pencil, a look of frustration twisting her normally gentle features.

"Good morning, Ren!"

Shizune bounded happily next to me, dropping her satchel on the floor with a heavy thunk of books.

"Morning, Shizune," I said offhandedly, drumming my fingers on the table.

"Why are you sitting at the front of the class?"

 _Damn her observational skills._  "Don't wanna piss off the teacher again," my eyes drifted to the medical textbook peeking out from Rin's bag. "So I figured I'd actually try to stay awake today."

"Ha, good luck with that," Shizune snickered knowingly at me while she organised her stationery on her desk.

I pouted. "Don't you believe in me, my dearest, bestest friend ever?"

"I think that title goes to Hatake-kun," she rolled her eyes.

Rin visibly stiffened at the mention of the bratty genius. "Nah, he's my otouto," I said. She still didn't look up, though, and was still stuck on the same question: _'What happens when a wind release jutsu is used against a fire release jutsu?'_ "Kakashi's in a whole different category."

Rin had already written out the elementary answer of,  _'The wind release jutsu will overpower the fire release jutsu due to its stronger nature'_ , though there was still ample space left for further elaboration.

I seized my opening. "It'll overpower it with a ninjutsu of a higher level, sure, but they cancel each other out at the same level," Rin jumped at my sudden explanation, staring at me with wide eyes. "A wind release jutsu can actually kick some fiery ass if it's a more advanced technique… or if its power is enhanced with a water release jutsu, for instance."

Shizune laughed, "God, Ren, you're such a nerd today."

"You're actually really smart!" Rin gaped at me.

"You say that like you thought I was stupid," I smirked.

She looked adorable when she was all flustered. "I-I'm sorry! That's not what I mea—"

"Relax, I'm just teasing."

Worry eased from her face, and the curious purple markings on her cheeks made me want to poke them.

"It's just that you're always falling asleep in class…" Rin said awkwardly.

"She's actually a huge bookworm," Shizune smiled. "When she's awake, that is."

"Can't deny that," I confessed, reaching into my own satchel. Heaving out a large pile of books, I dropped the load on my desk to the girls' amusement. "I see you're into a bit of light reading yourself, Nohara-chan."

They watched me gesture to the medical textbook in Rin's bag.

"Ooh, I have that book," Shizune bounced excitedly in her seat. "Do you want to be a medical nin, too?"

"Yeah!" Rin's eyes brightened. "Tsunade-sama is my idol!"

"She's my Auntie!" my friend squealed, and the fangirling began.

"Oh my god, are you serious?!"

"Yes! Do you want to meet her?"

"No way! I mean… of course I do. I can't believe this is happening!"

When the teacher arrived and the lesson on dressing up in fancy finery started, Shizune and Rin both shot each other goofy smiles. I lounged back in my chair smugly, imagining the stupidly ecstatic look on Obito's face when I would report back to him on my progress.

* * *

The rain splashed down on the cover above us in front of the library.

"…so, yeah. That happened. I can invite you along to see Tsunade-sama, if you like."

The Uchiha's grin spread so wide that I thought it'd surpass the sides of his face. I was flung into a tight hug, with him vibrating with glee whilst jumping up and down with me in his arms.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" A stream of happy tears would've been running down his face in an animated medium.

"You're welcome," I wheezed, patting him lightly on the back. "If you'd kindly let go of me now, thanks…"

"Sorry!" Obito quickly released me, looking down at his sandals embarrassedly. "We can't train today since it's raining outside and 'cause of the fire, you know… and my clan can't know about it so we can't use the indoor training facilities…"

"It's totally fine, we can train some other day."

"I have to go home now," he said, strapping his goggles onto his eyes. "Thank you for doing this, Kurenai-chan. I'm really glad we're friends."

There was just something dazzling in Obito's smile that contrasted against the sharp twinge of needles digging into my chest. I hated the feeling.

Shunting the pain, I returned his smile. "Anytime, Obito-kun. See you tomorrow!"  
After he took off into the rain, I slumped against the railing of the ramp leading up to the Academy library. The tip of my red umbrella rested upon the concrete ground as I twirled it absentmindedly. It was nice to feel the cool air against my skin, to smell the earthy petrichor during a downpour…

"Playing matchmaker, are we?" …until a wanker disturbed the peace.

Opening my umbrella, I walked out into the rain and peered around the side of the library. Asuma was sitting on the ground below a shaded window, reading some volume of what appeared to be a historical manga.

Fucking hell, I officially had a stalker.

"There's no 'we', Sarutobi."

"Huh, I guess so," he didn't look up as he turned a page of the book, sipping from a carton of soy milk. "So what's in it for you?"

"What the hell are you talkin' about?" I scowled.

"Helping Uchiha-kun out. What are you getting out of it?"

"The feeling of decency and of being a good friend,"  _shit, that sounded really defensive, didn't it?_ "Fuck you, Sarutobi, I'm not that horrible of a person."

Except that I was.

"Why do you dislike me so much? You try so hard to avoid me," Asuma actually faced me this time with a quizzical expression. "Not that I'm upset or anything, don't flatter yourself. I just want to know why."

"Hey, call it 'not upset' or whatever you want; it still bothers you," I said nonchalantly, resting the stem of my umbrella on my shoulder.

"You're dodging the question."

"Hmm, lemme see,"  _I don't wanna give birth to your icky spawn._  "You're an annoying smartass, you have a stupid face… oh, and you're a poster boy for nepotism. Need I go on?"

"I know what that means," he snapped, shutting his book. "As if I wouldn't… I get enough of that crap as it is."

Now, this I was surprised at. Many teenagers wouldn't have such an advanced word in their vocabularies, and yet here was a seven year old kid understanding a somewhat political term. Granted, Asuma was pretty damn bright for his age, judging from his academic ranks in class. The Narutoverse seriously aged their children prematurely.

Some amount of sympathy bubbled up within me. "Hey, Sarutobi-kun…"

He jerked his head upwards, startled at my sudden decency. A hint of a smile involuntarily tugged at the corner of my lips.

Asuma cleared his throat embarrassedly, quickly finding his voice again. "Don't call me that. It's too weird coming from you."

"What, would you rather me call you 'Asu-chan'?" I burst out laughing at the thought, reckoning that it would definitely be appropriate.

"Hell no! Just call me Asuma," he mumbled, ducking his head. "Like everyone else does."

"Ah, no can do. Guess I'll just keep calling you 'Sarutobi', then."

"…you're a real dick, Yuu—"

An ear-splitting scream came from within the library. Asuma seized up, squeezing his milk carton and spilling some of it on his clothes.

"What the hell was that?!" He stood up and scrambled to peer into the window.

I followed him with my heart racing, budging him over to make space for me. Bookshelves framed the walls of our vision. The Academy's usual librarian stood within the vista between the shelves with a blood-soaked tanto in her hand.

"Isn't that—?" I stopped mid-sentence as the figure began to shift, morphing into a completely different stranger. "Holy shit!"

"Put your umbrella down!" Asuma hissed at me, and I hastily complied to remain as inconspicuous as possible.

The perpetrator appeared to be nothing more than a young girl, maybe only a few years older than my classmates. She bore a Mist headband and armed herself with a few shuriken between the fingers of her other hand.

"We can't see much from here," I whispered, watching as the infiltrator walked off the frame of the window.

Grabbing Asuma's wrist, I pulled him with me as we made our way towards the front of the library building. We ducked down below the windows, our hair and clothing damp from the rainfall. Glancing over the sill, a child was sobbing hysterically over the fallen body of a teacher. I almost wretched at the sight of his disembowelled form, internal organs made external as they spilled from his open stomach cavity.

" _Jesus fucking Christ…_ " the English slipped easily from my tongue, and I regretted it immediately.

Asuma mumbled in agreement, "Whatever you said." He crouched downwards from the gory scene and shut his eyes, trembling.

My own eyes stayed unaverted, frantically scanning the room. I spotted a familiar boy with a bowl cut sitting frozen with fear at a nearby desk.

"What the hell is Gai doing in the freakin' library?!" I screeched softly.

Asuma remained on the ground, face pale while hugging his knees.

"I think I'm gonna be sick…"

He threw up the semi-digested remains of his lunch on the balcony floor. I crouched down with him, patting his back as the burn of acidic bile must've wrenched out his coughs. Asuma wiped his mouth with the back of sleeve, tears running down his face as he quietly wept. I drew him into my arms upon instinct, comforting the distraught child.

"Get a hold of yourself, Sarutobi," I hushed him, trying to ignore the acrid stench of vomit. "We gotta do something about this!"

My own state of mind was currently in overdrive. I was internally freaking the fuck out, but was strangely calm, holding it together on the outside. The full impact of the events just hadn't quite hit me yet.

Asuma stilled, clutching at the back of my shirt. "T-teacher… where are all the teachers? Why isn't anyone noticing?!" They were both excellent questions.

Letting go of him, I steadied ourselves by gripping onto his shoulders. "We need to get help." I bore into his dark, frightened eyes.

"I'll go!" Asuma tried to struggle away from my grasp, wobbling dizzily while his eyes glazed over. "Come with m—…"

His body slackened, collapsing onto the ground with a dull thud.

"Asuma!" I cried out, shaking him to no avail. "C'mon, wake up, you stupid prick!"

He didn't rouse from his unconsciousness. I quickly checked his pulse, feeling the steady heartbeat underneath my fingers.

_Thank fuck._

Breathing a sigh of relief, I slumped to sit down on the ground and rested my back against the library wall.

I had no idea what was happening. Asuma was out cold for some goddamned unknown reason, a teacher had just been murdered, and my classmates were being held hostage in the library by some child Mist nin masquerading as the old librarian.

The whole situation seemed too nightmarish to be real.

Mass screaming resounded from within the building, and I rushed back to the window again. Bodies slumped over in their seats with blood pooling on the floor, proliferating together in pools of crimson. A sharp cry tore itself from my throat when I saw Gai amongst them, head lolled to the side, lifelessly resting against the table.

My feet seemed to move themselves as I backed away from the window. The metal railing hit my shoulders, cold dread superseding the spreading ache in my back.

" _N-no…_   _this c-can't be real,_ " I choked. " _This is just a dream… just a f-fucking scaryass nightm-mare…_ "

I shot my eyes to Asuma who lay on the floor next to his puddle of vomit, arm splayed out unnaturally to one side. The strength in my legs were being sapped away, my breathing no longer being under control. I sank down to the ground.

Then it came to me.

"Genjutsu," I clutched at the sides of my head, dragging down strained inhalations through my mouth. " _I-it's gotta be!_ "

Making the tiger seal with my quivering hands, I closed my eyes and tried to steady my breathing. Although I knew the theory behind genjutsu dissipation, I had never put it in into practice.

_Concentrate…_

The comforting flow of my own chakra soothed my panicked state. Its smooth and steady current through my pathways ran a course within my body, upwards towards my brain, only to be impeded upon by a foreign sort of energy.

 _There!_  "KAI!"

My own force surged against the intruding chakra, and my eyes flew open to the same sight in front of me. Asuma was still sprawled on the floor. The limp bodies of my classmates still haunted my vision.

Tears stung my eyes as I shut them tightly again, raising my hands up to form the seal.

"K-kai…" The view remained identical. "Kai, kai, KAI!"

Nothing changed. My helpless sobs pierced the eerie silence, face buried in my clammy hands. They were soon covered in my snot, saliva and tears while my body wracked with grief.

"I'll give you points for trying," the voice was strikingly cheerful, almost melodic in her playful taunt.

Hiccoughing, I removed my face from my soiled hands to face the attacker. The girl towered above me, her straight, sable hair skimming the padded shoulders of her grey flak jacket. There was no semblance of humanity in her dark eyes, offset by the gleam in her Kirigakure emblazoned headband. Cheeks speckled with red, her similarly stained lips twisted into a wicked grin, blood dripping from the blade in her hands.

"Hello, Demon."


	18. daffodil (truth)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reveals are made and Kurenai finally comes clean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> T/w for mental health issues.

I froze. The jibing nickname instilled sheer terror within me, cutting deeper than any other jeering classmate's attempt.

"What do you want?" my voice crawled out in a feeble squeak.

The girl's chuckle swelled into laughter when I flinched as she raised her tipless tanto, resting it flush against my throat. Its broadside elevated my chin, forcing me to stare directly at her face. The Mist agent tilted her head to the side, her eyes narrowing as she watched me quake fearfully underneath her gaze. I tried not to tremble too hard against the stickiness of my classmates' blood that clung to my skin, or else risk accidentally slicing my own throat open alongside the blade.

"You are weak," the girl intoned. "I expected as much, but it's still… disappointing to see."

 _Is it just me, or are antagonists generally just unoriginal as hell with their dialogue?_  It was kind of relieving how snark stayed loyally by my side at such a shitty time.

Swallowing emptily, I controlled the shallow breaths through my nose and kept my voice steady. "How do you know me?"

Much to my immense relief, she drew back her tanto. My chest slumped, breathing relaxing.

"I've been observing you."

At this, I bit back a groan and mentally facepalmed instead.  _Great, just fan-fucking-tastic._ Of course, my anomaly of an existence in this universe just had to attract some Big Bad's unwanted attention. A very lewd thought formed in my disturbed mind, and I tried very hard not to laugh incredulously. Unfortunately, my hand flew to my mouth after a strangled sort of noise escaped it.

My warped sense of humour had such awful timing. I blamed it on anxious delirium.

The girl remained unmoved. Clearing my throat, I thought that it was best to opt for politeness when faced with such a life-threatening situation. "May I ask why?"

"You've caught the attention of various people," she shrugged. "Unsurprising, seeing as how stupidly noticeable you make yourself out to be."

 _Well, shit._  "And who do you represent?"

"That is none of your concern."

Expecting such an answer, I gulped and readied myself for the response to my next question. "Are you here to kill me?"

"Kill you?" the Mist agent let out a delighted sort of tinkling laugh. "Why would I do such a silly thing like that?"

She moved towards me with the grace of a stalking predator. I instinctively shrunk backwards, the metal railing digging into my back. Grasping my chin with her fingers, she leaned her face in close to mine, eyeing me with a perverse hunger in her dilated pupils. With her warm breath against my neck, the girl's tongue darted out to lick a trail from my jawline to my cheek. I felt my skin crawl beneath her touch, muffling down any sounds of revulsion I so desperately wanted to make.

My breathing hitched. It was then, when I saw it etched upon her palate: three solid black lines with two arching, broken ones underneath them, almost like a tattoo.

 _Root's cursed seal._  Danzo was behind this… but why would he pose as a Mist infiltrator and target his own village's soldiers-in-making?

"You are delectably valuable," the Root agent whispered into my ear, stroking my moist cheek tenderly. "Killing you would be fun, but it'd be such a terrible waste."

I gave no indication that I'd found out her status but shuddered as her breath tickled my ear.

"Why am I so important?" I asked softly, staring at the bloodied bodies of my classmates through the library window. The hand behind my back slowly reached into my weapons holster. I grasped my fingers around the hilt of a kunai.

Politeness could go fuck itself.

"Don't play dumb, Demon-chan," she drew backwards, standing up again and wiping her tanto with the bottom of her shirt. "It's unbecoming of you."  _They know._

"You killed them," my eyes began to water, voice breaking. "You killed Gai! Why would you kill them? They have nothing to do with me!"

"Not everything revolves around—"

Not once did I think about the fact that I was about to commit attempted murder, even if it were in self-defence. I struck out with my kunai, stabbing the girl in the jugular. Instead of screaming and the gushing of blood, I found my weapon impaled in mid-air as the water clone burst, soiling my clothes. Cursing out loud, I looked around before finding the Root infiltrator crouching upon the shelter's roof.

"That was incredibly foolish of you," she scoffed, completely unscathed. "But if you want to play, Demon—"

I bolted before she could finish her sentence. My legs carried me away from the library, sprinting to the nearest exit of the Academy grounds. The rain came down relentlessly over me, further drenching my already sodden form. Mud squelched underneath my sandals with each hurried footstep, my vision obscured by the raindrops that had fallen into my eyes.

My panic rose.  _I don't wanna die, please, god no, not again!_

 **'** _ **Didn't you so desperately want to?'**_ the sultry lilt whispered in my head.  _ **'Third time's the charm, my dear parasite…'**_

It was just genjutsu, I kept telling myself. The voice wasn't real. It was all in the manipulation of my mind.

**'** _**You know that I'll always be with you, in your former life, in this life, and in the next, if you'll have one. You can't get rid of me.'** _

_N-no, you can't talk to me in this universe, only in my goddamn nightmares… JUST SHUT UP AND FUCK OFF! Shut up, shut up, shut up…_

My hands clapped over my ears as I continued to run, tears mixing with the rain. I was going crazy again, going back to a mental state of which I never wanted to return to. Fingers curled up against the sides of my head, my nails digging into my scalp.

The goddamned voice was back.

I hadn't heard it whilst awake for seven years, and now it was taunting me again, its deceptively silky cadence stroking the corners of my mind, trying to bend me towards its will.

A cold sensation of wetness pooled around my foot, startling me to alertness. I stopped and looked down, finding my sandal submerged in a puddle of rainwater. The mud seemed to be enmeshed around my foot, trapping it in the disgusting pool. I tried wriggling it out to no avail, wrenching my limb away but it remained firmly stuck. It gurgled unnaturally, migrating upwards to my ankle.

"Oh, shi—"

The Root agent yanked me down, and I let out a scream. I was being dragged like a rag doll through the muddy ground, caking my entire back with a wet slop. A hand materialised from the puddle, and the girl's body crawled out from the pool of water, rather like Sadako sans a noisy television screen. She walked over to my pathetically shivering, muck-covered form that lay curled up in foetal position on the ground. Her wet, matted hair clung to her face, strands covering her stony eyes.

"How rude of you to interrupt me twice in a row."

**'** _**Give up, parasite. It's too late for you now.'** _

"F-f-fuck y-you," I spat out at them both, teeth chattering as hugged myself.

Chuckling in amusement, the psychopathic bitch placed the muddy underfoot of her sandal on my arm and rolled me over on my back.

I refused to go down without a fight.

Hands whipping to form seals, wispy smoke dissipated throughout the rain while I created two clones. They sprung onto their feet, the momentary look of determination on their faces melting into ones of horror as they were effortlessly dispelled with a single swipe of her tanto.

"Nice try, Demon-chan, but I believe," she lowered her blade, slicing my throat. "It's time for you to wake up."

* * *

My eyes snapped open with a gasp. Hands flying around my neck, I fumbled around, expecting my fingers to be slicked with spurting blood from a gaping cut. To my utmost relief, my throat was unharmed. I was still sitting against the railing of the Academy library's balcony.

My mind also stayed thankfully silent.

Asuma remained slumped on the ground, foot twitching as he slowly began to stir from the genjutsu. I rushed over to him, smacking his cheek lightly with the back of my hand. His arm shot out and grabbed my wrist, groaning as his eyes fluttered open.

"Quit it," he grumbled, letting me go. The Hokage's brat sat up and groggily rubbed his eyes.

Screaming erupted from inside the building once again.

_No, not again, for fuck's sake…!_

My stomach lurched as I leapt up. Ignoring Asuma's cries of protest, I bounded through the library doors and straight into the building.

What I found brought me tears of relief.

"Gai…" my voice cracked.

A frightened and bewildered look marred his face, though I was simply grateful as all hell that he could still be able to show any facial expression at all. Eyes watering, I scrambled towards the kid, throwing my arms around his shoulders and squeezing the precious, gorgeous life out of him.

"Sensei… that Mist girl killed sensei." He feebly raised a hand to rest on my back, crying softly.

"I was so scared," I sobbed, clutching Gai tighter. "You were gone in front of me… I thought you were fucking gone…"

Gai shuddered underneath my hold. "I thought that it was real, too. Everyone was dead, except me… it seemed so scarily real, but it was all just a horrible genjutsu. I'm still here, Kurenai-chan."

 _That damned kid…_  of course, he wouldn't hesitate to comfort me despite having just experienced his own traumatic mindfuck.

Reluctantly breaking away from him, I laced my fingers through his own and brushed a thumb over his racing pulse, needing the reassurance that he was still alive. He stared back at me, tears tracking down his cheeks while bearing a watery smile.

"You didn't have to go to the library to study, you freakin' moron," I sniffled.

Gai laughed shakily. "And I thought you had become nicer."

I turned to look at the grisly scene before me.

Asuma was standing at the front door, his haunted gaze fixated on the gutted corpses lying on the rust-stained floorboards, a few unlucky children having been caught amidst the slaughter. Trying not to stare directly at the mutilated bodies, I kept the murder scene in my peripheral vison and walked over to the Hokage's brat.

I covered the sides of his face with my hands and turned his head away. "Don't look," I murmured, averting his attention by staring into his horror-filled eyes.

Asuma's jaw stiffened, his whisper broken, "This is so messed up…"

The doors smashed open behind us. ANBU agents began to storm into the library, ushering kids into a flock and guiding them outside of the building. Asuma and I were being manhandled gently by intimidating dudes in masks, oxymoronic as it was. Their unsettling anonymity sure didn't help with the situation of calming down children that had just been scarred for life.

"Everything will be okay," the bird-masked ANBU tried to reassure us while grasping our shoulders. "We just need to ask you a few questions before letting you go, alright?"

Asuma had grabbed hold of my hand, and for some nebulous reason, I didn't let go.

I was definitely not looking forward to the bloody interrogation.

* * *

Jiraiya looked like shit, though I could have given him a run for his money. He wore darkened circles underneath his dull eyes, with that familiar mischievous spark non-existent, leaving a disturbing emptiness in its stead. When he'd shown up at my front door, I almost cried for the both of us.

I had missed my friend so goddamned much.

"I lied that day," he confessed. "When I said that I'd tell sensei about Orochimaru."

The lines of his forehead deepened as the sunset cast a shadow across his face. We sat alone in his small backyard, cross-legged on the unkempt lawn that had clearly been neglected while Jiraiya was away. A tree sapling had been planted in front of us, struggling on its last vestiges of life, its body drooping with its leaves having wilted.

Keeping my tone neutral, I wasn't surprised or angry at all. "So, what have you been doing all these months, then?"

"Writing, occasionally checking in on the surveillance and ruminating over how absolutely screwed up everything is over several drinks… and fucking around," Sighing shamefacedly, the sage hung his head. "I'm sorry. I just couldn't bear to tell him or Tsunade-hime… it would kill them, you know? And I'm sorry for not being there for you, for not writing, and… everything else."

"It's okay," I cracked a smile, and I meant it. It was strangely comforting to know how imperfect and see how vulnerable a legendary war hero could be, as if it humanised Jiraiya and made him more real in my eyes. "You know, if you'd be willing to stick around, I'd be there for you, man."

"Thank you… shit, I've been an awful friend, haven't I?"

"I'm completely familiar with that feeling."

We both laughed, but it sounded hollow to my ears. I picked at an overgrown blade of grass in front of me, tearing it out of the earth by its roots.

"I don't want to think about what we're gonna do with Danzo and Root right now," I muttered.

Jiraiya leaned backwards, stretching his back and sighing. "Neither do I… but we're just putting everything off. We'll have to figure things out, eventually."

"Sorry for putting all this shit on you."

"No," he shook his head vehemently. "I'm glad that you're here. I don't resent you for telling me everything, Kurenai." The man always knew what to say.

I'd told ANBU nothing of Root's affiliation of what must have been an assassination and nothing of how my genjutsu differentiated from all of the others'. Besides witnessing the deaths of my classmates, nobody else had to experience the infiltrator licking at their face and being chased in the rain, before having their throat slit. Hinoiri had been sobbing as she'd swept me up in her arms, streaming a litany of, "You're safe, you're safe you're safe…" Yoruo had simply been his usual distant self after dropping in to specifically check up on me. It only stung just a bit.

Kakashi was dealing with it in his own protective way of wearing me down with his relentless training sessions, whereas Gai had forgone studying altogether and Shizune just gave me these overly long hugs every so often.

Jiraiya's absence had been painfully noticeable, until now.

My nightmares had also morphed into the Root girl masquerading as a Mist agent. I could remember every detail of the sickening feeling of her wet tongue leaving a sticky streak of saliva on my cheek. I'd become paranoid of my auditory hallucinations returning, haunted by the voice that had only appeared in my dreams upon appearing in this 'verse. It was like I'd slipped back into that mental state, no longer even trusting my own mind. It was completely fucking tiresome.

"I want antipsychotics," I blurted out, hands clutching at my knees.

"Kurenai..." Jiraiya looked at me with that  _pity_  on his face. I'd seen it so many times before, often tinged with a touch of wariness since they were dealing with someone who was psychotic. They had looked at me with that enduring, stigmatised label of a crazy person, and anything I said or did was held against me as part of my condition. Bile rose up in my throat, bitter and burning.

"I'm not crazy," swallowing, I dug my nails into my palms. "I'm not fuckin' crazy, okay? J-just… just give me some meds and I'll be fine and dandy."

He kept his voice gentle, "I know you're not, but have you considered that it was just the effects of the genjutsu you were put under?"

"I don't fucking care! I don't wanna go back to being insane again," tears sprung from my eyes. I angrily blinked them away and dug deeper into my palms, the physical pain assuaging the anguish that was tearing itself into me. "Please, Jiraiya… I can't deal with this shit again."

He slowly reached out, taking my fingers with his hands and dislodging them from my palms. A set of reddened, crescent imprints lay embedded in my hands. Jiraiya gently smoothed them over with his thumbs, a serene expression gracing his face.

"You aren't and weren't ever crazy, Kurenai," he said softly, curling my fingers over and enclosing my hands with his own giant ones. "You were just very ill, okay? And you have a new life, now. I am so damn proud of how far you've come." Jiraiya's words brought a cloying feeling in my chest.

I gritted my teeth, hot tears scalding my cheeks. "I don't want to hear her voice ever again, and I want the nightmares to just stop. They're fucking me up…" I laughed bitterly. "Not that I wasn't fucked up before."

"You are not fucked up."

"I am!" I snapped, ignoring the sincere conviction in his voice. "I felt so… displaced when I was reborn. It drove me mad."

Jiraiya stayed silent, still clasping my hands.

"I didn't believe that this was all real, sometimes. You guys were all just fictional characters in a manga, so I just did whatever stupid shit I wanted. I thought that I was experiencing a severe psychotic break, that it was all a part of my illness… so I just played along like it was some sort of game."

My eyes burned. The sage drew me into his arms, and I grasped onto the back of his haori, resting the side of my face against his chest. The smell of sake and calligraphy ink clouded around me, its acerbic tang piercing my olfactory senses. I could hear the rustling of leaves nearby, the twittering of faint birdcalls in the distance… my palms still ached, even while softened by the fabric in their clutches.

"It's all real, isn't it?" I whispered, closing my eyes.

"Yeah," he held me tightly, weariness seeping through his voice as it rumbled softly in his chest. "It is."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter has some of the biggest reveals of the fic and finally gets into the main plotline stuff. I would love to hear your opinions on OC!Kurenai's revealed mental health issues and on how she is actually an unreliable narrator. It pretty much explains her poor self-esteem, self-doubt, guilt and anger that was portrayed in the earlier chapters. Even with the traumatic experience of being reincarnated, her negative attitudes/responses can be attributed to her underlying mental health.
> 
> And gettin' into my field of study, psychotic depression has a strong neurobiological basis. OC!Kurenai's new body would pretty much eliminate the psychosis and major depressive episodes, though the psychological/cognitive-behavioural factors would remain with her mind intact, hence the depressive symptoms. Of course, this is purely wild speculation and is barely scientific but it'd be a likely explanation (pfft, as if you could rationalise reincarnation…).
> 
> Barely anyone has explored mental health in Naruto fic (SIs, especially), so I figured, hey, why not combine my passions? c;


	19. begonia (fear)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nightmares, paranoia and flashbacks.

The wind tickled my face, beams of sunlight penetrating through the rustling canopy of trees in dappled shadow. I gazed up at the leafy cover above me, squinting at the brightness that almost blinded me. The area was surrounded by a field of vibrant sunflowers facing towards their fiery star of a namesake, swaying in the pleasant breeze.

A whisper breathed into my ear,  _'Over here…'_

My eyes drifted towards the ground to a black hare. It was licking at its paws and cleaning its face, innocently going about its own business. Curious, I took a cautious step towards it, the gritty soil beneath my boot crunching softly. The hare froze at the sound, ears erect with alertness, its red eyes staring straight at me in trepidation.

"I'm not gonna hurt you, lil' guy," I crooned, hands out in an open and non-threatening stance.

It immediately turned tail and bounded away from me, heading into the sunflower field.

"Wait!" I called out desperately."Where the hell are you going?"

The leather of my shoes scraped against each other, making me stumble when I started to run after the startled animal. Sunlight cast over me in a swathe of warmth after I left the shade, the wind rushing through my hair as the sweetness of the air filled my lungs. Sunflower leaves tickled my face while I charged through the field, and I swept the stalks away with my bare forearms. The little black hare continued to hop frantically away, escaping through the spaces in the undergrowth. The flowers began to thin out the further we ran, and the stench of manure grew in the middle of this literally shitty countryside.

Wrinkling my nose, I pushed apart the last stalks in front of me, only to find myself standing in front of an open, asphalt road.

_Motor roads don't exist in Konoha, do they…?_

The hare stood at the edge of it, toeing the line between earth and pavement. Its whiskers twitched, the eerie, ruby glow of its unblinking eyes sending shivers down my spine. A rumbling noise began to approach us, making me jump with its startling familiarity.

I hadn't heard the sound of a running engine in years…  _but how?_

A hulking semi-trailer truck drove nearer. The driver wasn't visible through its heavily tinted windows, though they honked their horn at the sight of me.

My heart wanted to anxiously burst out of my chest, dread pitting in my stomach, and I had no idea know why. Without warning, the midnight hare turned and began to dart across the road. The truck was fast approaching, its horn blaring into my ears, drowning out the cry that tore away from my throat.

"NO, DON'T—!"

I could only stand there and watch helplessly as tyres crushed the hare's body, leaving a bloody puddle of dark fur and viscera in the middle of the road.

The truck sped away, roadkill having gone unnoticed. Everything went still for a moment, the silence deafening.

It shattered when I started to scream, and I couldn't stop.

* * *

Kakashi looked at me with that annoying concern in his eyes after having shaken me awake. It was my doing, my calculating influence that he was like this, that he gave any undeserving shits about me at all.

"Neechan...?" The affection in his voice was unnatural.

Fuming, I smacked away his hands from my arms, and grabbed the diary from my nightstand, wordlessly sitting myself at my desk. My pen furiously scrawled across the page while I forced myself to recall and jot down every lurid detail from that abso-fucking-lutely horrid nightmare.

Too absorbed in my writing, I jumped when the brat placed a gloved hand over mine, making me scribble messily onto the page.

My temper snapped. "For fuck's sake, Kakashi!" I snarled, throwing my pen across the room.

It clattered against the wardrobe, and he flinched. My breaths came out heavily, hands gripping onto the edge of the table.

"S-sorry…" I gasped in air, letting my forehead rest against the desk. "I'm… I'm sorry for yelling at you when you were just trying to help."

Kakashi's hand rested upon the top of head, his fingers soothingly carding through my hair. My shoulders shook as I forced my tears to remain unshed. I was finished with crying because it accomplished jack all.

As soon as it was safe to show my dry eyes, I lifted my head. Kakashi sat in the seat next to mine, patiently waiting until I was ready to speak.

"I'm keeping a dream journal," I explained shakily, smoothing out a page. "It helps with lucid dreaming, apparently."

His tone was soft. "So… you want to control your nightmares?"

"Yeah, that's it. Jiraiya-san suggested it."

"Is there anything that I can do to help?" Kakashi almost pleaded.

I held out my arms expectantly. My otouto let out a ragged, bemoaned sigh and acquiesced to my "unreasonable" request.

" _So much trust,_ " he grumbled, though he didn't fidget in the hug at all like he used to.

"Oh my god, I've corrupted you," I let go of him and burst out laughing. "I've corrupted you with my awful slang!"

"Shut up."

"You're such a tsundere!"

"NO, I'M NOT!"

My sounds of laughter died out. I watched Kakashi's shoulders slump, his head bowed with a tiredness that looked tragically out of place on a child's face.

"Hey, I'm sorry…" my voice wobbled as it hit me how much of an asshole I'd been. His hurt look of near-betrayal flashed back into my mind, the guilt tearing into me. "My situation doesn't excuse me from being a complete dick."

"It's not that."

I tilted my head. "What is it, then?"

Kakashi gripped his knees, as if readying himself for some awful announcement. I placed a hand upon his shoulder.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

Shaking his head, he blurted out, "I can't train you anymore."

"Why?"

"I need to focus on my own training for the third stage of the chuunin exam."

 _Oh. That's it?_  flitted through my thoughts, but I couldn't help the disappointment that was disloyal to my effort in keeping a straight face.

"You never told me." It was most certainly an accusation.

Kakashi shrugged, absentmindedly scratching at the edge of his mask as if saying,  _"I don't tell you a lot of things."_

_You can't read minds, idiot. Remember what your therapist used to say, cognitive distortion 'n all that shit._

I shut my eyes, mentally shaking myself. It looked like I was merely blinking from an outsider's point of view, but the sanity check meant everything.

"There was… that incident," the masked kid lowered his voice, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. "And everyone had a lot going on, so I didn't want to add to that and make it a big deal. That's why I didn't tell anyone."

Blinking and dumbfounded, I realised that I had just witnessed a milestone in Kakashi's character development. I wanted to burst out with, "You're shitting me.", but tact grabbed a hold of my collar and pulled me back.

"That's really considerate of you," I said instead.

Kakashi frowned, looking mildly affronted. "You look surprised."

Shrugging, I smiled wryly in admittance to my guilt and moved on. "Well, congrats, otouto. Though I can't really say that I'm surprised, with you being a prodigy 'n all."

Oh, I definitely anticipated that smirk of his. " _Thanks,_   _sis_."

"The gang and I'll come to watch you humiliate and kick the asses of much older genin, promise."

Kakashi's huff of amusement was his equivalent to hysterical laughter.

* * *

"You're missing the service."

Asuma dug his hands into his pockets, face impassive while watching me dip my fingers into a water bottle in the middle of the deserted Academy grounds. Classes had been cancelled due to the memorial service for the victims of the massacre. Shizune and Gai were attending the ceremony, and I was left waiting for their return.

"Attendance is optional." I swiped my forehead with the liquid, trying to keep it from dripping via chakra control and asked, "Was it depressing as hell?"

He nodded, his eyes glassy. "Yeah…"

"Then I'm glad I didn't go."

Closing my eyes, I focused on the chakra exercise, feeling the cool wetness against my skin. It was difficult to work with liquid in varying the levels of my chakra constantly, and I was trying to build up towards water walking. Tree walking in its fight against gravity and your body weight had really been a cinch, to be honest, in comparison to this.

"Why do you have to be such a heartless bitch, Yuuhi?" Asuma spat out.

Opening an eye, I saw the sanctimonious kid shaking with anger, standing over me with his fists clenched at his sides. Water trickled down my forehead into my eye. I winced, cursing softly at the sting.

"I am not heartless," I said, keeping my voice level and wiping at my brow with the back of my hand. "The victims and their families have my sincere condolences. I just don't wanna expose myself to more trauma. I've had my fair share for more than one lifetime, thank you very fucking much."

"That's still selfish of you!" he hissed.

I shrugged. "It's self-preservation. Besides, you're here, so you must have left early. I believe the reason for your early departure would be equivalent to mine, you hypocritical dickbag."

There was a silence while I tried the chakra control exercise again, managing to keep the wetness pooled against my skin for a longer period of time. He obviously couldn't think of a comeback to my sound logic.

"You should have seen their parents' faces," Asuma whispered dejectedly.

Concentration breaking, I breathed a ragged, aggrieved sigh and reached into my pants pocket, digging out a rumpled handkerchief. It was from the souvenir shop of Hinoiri's workplace at the botanical museum. She had given it me, and as most gifts from my mother, it was appropriately red in colour and floral in theme, being embroidered with a pattern of small waterlilies.

Wiping my wet face, I wordlessly offered it to a crying Asuma who took it with a mumbled thanks. He sat down on the grass beside me and dried his tears with the handkerchief, sniffling pitifully.

"Your chakra control is really good," he said quietly.

"Good for a heartless, selfish bitch?"

Asuma snorted before catching himself and looking ashamed. "I'm really sorry for calling you that…"

"I'm surprised that nobody is suing the Academy for negligence," I said dryly.

To be honest, I really wasn't. No one would dare cross the Council who were practically the administration of the monopolised ninja educational system. Even if they did, they would be cast as a dissident. The civilian council also had no say in what was essentially a shinobi affair, even if it were a matter of public safety. Konoha's legal system was just rigged that way, and I wouldn't be surprised if the other Hidden villages operated in the same fucked up manner.

"That Ame ANBU girl was really powerful," Asuma shook his head ruefully. "It's not their fault… I mean, she was able to put that many people under a genjutsu."

 _Apologist, much?_  "It still should haven't happened," I snapped, the plastic of my water bottle crinkling in my tightened grasp. "There should be pre-emptive measures to prevent this sort of shit from happening, goddammit! We're in the middle of a—…"

I paused to prevent myself from revealing future spoilers.

"…what does 'pre-emptive measures' mean?" Asuma ducked his head in embarrassment. "You speak really long words, sometimes, Yuuhi-chan."

God, he was still so young. "Plans for things to be done before something can happen."

It was beyond shitty to believe that Danzo had realistically orchestrated the killing of children, inclusive in the assassination of that teacher for unknown reasons. He would have done so at his own discretion without the knowledge of the Council, as even they would have never accepted the murder of Academy students as collateral. Then again, I also had to take into account that the Council and the current Hokage would sweep a whole genocide under the carpet in the form of the Uchiha massacre…

Fuck, I needed a drink.

Children began to stream into the grounds, their inane chatter disturbing what little peace I had left. Most of them looked sullen-faced having returned from the memorial.

I got up and dusted off my pants. "Well, that's my cue to find Gai and Shizune."

Asuma handed me back my handkerchief, red-eyed and voice shaky. "Thanks…"

There really was nothing attractive about his behaviour at all. If this was who The Powers That Be thought should be endgame for me, then I'd just flip 'em all the middle finger and ride off into the sunset with a certain pretty blue-eyed blond or two.

Before I could re-join more tolerable companionship, I felt a tug at my sleeve. Head inclining to glare down at the Hokage spawn, my expression softened at the stricken look on Asuma's face.

"Do the nightmares ever stop?"

"…yeah," I lied quietly, scrunching up the handkerchief in a closed fist. "Eventually, they do."

* * *

Obito still hadn't arrived. I checked my watch again, gripping at my sleeved forearm in frustration. The little bastard was already over an hour late, again. I should've been used to his tardiness by now, but the daggers being glared into my back by the Uchiha guards at the compound's entrance were just slightly grating.

… _fuck it, I'm done waiting._ Kicking the dirt at my feet in frustration, I stormed off in the opposite direction muttering curses underneath my breath. It was already nearing sunset in the late afternoon as spring had yet to catch up to its lengthened daylight. The vermillion horizon swathed with the sun's receding rays, signalling the end of yet another day.

I had spent my earlier time trying to progress with the transformation jutsu. I could already make transforms successfully, although I still retained my own features in the mirroring of another's appearance. It was pretty hilarious transforming into a guy, though, with having a foreign appendage between my legs. I'd also seriously missed having boobs.

Shadows of the surrounding alleyways cast a dimness along my path through the slums of the village. Its surrounding eerie quietness crept through my senses as the sounds of my footsteps were amplified against the cracked pavement. Skin prickling while I was on edge, my line of sight darted between the vistas of the alleyways. I also occasionally whipped my head back to check behind me in case I was being stalked again. My paranoia wasn't unfounded, according to the Root bitch. I'd never experienced paranoid delusions with my mental disorder, though my concerns were completely legitimate in this fucked up universe.

My hand slowly dug into the weapons holster at my hip, fingers grasping around the hilt of a kunai. A small shuffle within the vicinity caught my ear, and I stopped in my tracks, listening intently for another sound. Silence remained.

"I'll have you know that I'm well-armed," I called out, voice clear and steady. "You reeeaaally don't wanna fuck with me, whoever you are."

There was still no response. I tentatively took another step, walking slowly through the corridor of alleyways. Darkness was rapidly descending upon Konoha as the sun sank lower in the horizon.

As soon as I heard the sound of approaching movement behind me, instinct had me dashing into the nearest alleyway. I ducked downwards and dove around the blur of a figure when it followed me, easily confronting their back. It was as if a switch had been flipped within me, and I'd begun operating on autopilot. My arm snaked itself around the neck of my assailant, locking them in a secure chokehold with my other hand bearing the kunai against their thigh. They began to splutter underneath in my grip, and the dark, murky haze cleared from my mind.

"S-stop, Kurenai-chan… it's me!" the familiar voice choked.

In that fleeting moment, I almost gave in to the demon. The idea was just so close within reach, so enticingly tangible with my arm hooked around his throat in a headlock, kunai gripped tightly in my other hand while having the blade pressed against his femoral artery. This potential was within me, this honed skill of beating a person down by striking at the vital points of their body from the katas I'd practised, of knowing the right arteries to sever from the Academy's assigned readings.

After all, I never hesitated when I'd tried to stab the Root bitch in the neck.

But I reined in the demon, loosening my hold around the boy and shoving him away from myself for his own safety.

"Don't  _ever_  do that again," I hissed. "I goddamn mean it, Obito-kun! Not if you value your life."

"Lesson learned," he gulped, shakily raising his hands defensively. "Dead serious."

 _He's just a kid,_  I told myself.  _He's not that man yet… or he might never be, right?_

"Right," I exhaled slowly, pocketing my kunai. "Good."

"We've got training together, remember?" Obito rasped, massaging his bruised throat. "Man, how did you even do that? That was crazy…"

It could have been so easy. I could have nicked the vessel and let him bleed out on the side of the street, relieving myself of a part of my blasted responsibility.

My Good Samaritan of a moral conscience gave me a major ass-kicking for that thought.

"I'll teach you next time," I said, rubbing my temples. "We need to focus on the great fireball jutsu, okay?"

Obito grumbled disappointedly, "Fiiine."

He wouldn't stop pouting all the way to the training grounds, while I was still stunned at what had just transpired.  _I could have killed him._

How brainwashed had I become?

"It's getting dark," Obito said, looking up at the dusky sky.

"Oh, really? I hadn't noticed."

Scoffing at my sarcasm, the Uchiha's annoyed expression quickly melted into a concerned frown as he grabbed my wrist. "You're shaking."

I snatched my arm out of his grip. "No, I'm not!"

"Are you cold, Kurenai-chan?" The kid always cared too damn much.

"I'm fine," I growled. "Just don't surprise me again with your sudden movements, alright?"

Obito sighed, staying quiet and thankfully dropping the subject. The walk towards our usual training area was painfully awkward. Shivers ran through my body while I braced myself by hugging my arms. The silence between us was punctuated with my trembling exhales.

"You're really not fine," Obito stopped and placed a hand on my shoulder, brows knitted together in protest. "I don't think we should train today."

"N-nothing's wrong with me!" I snapped, lungs constricting with every wheezing breath.

"Kurenai-chan…"

_The feeling of a cold blade at my throat… the sticky wetness of my cheek… wet, I was dripping wet and running through the rain, mud squelching underneath my back with that pealing laughter as warmth trickled down my neck…_

"Kurenai-chan!" Arms were holding me steady.

I was gasping. My heart beat erratically against my chest.  _Can't breathe, can't breathe, why can't I breathe? Oh god, I'm dying, not again, please, ohgodohgodohgod—!_

"Calm down," Obito pleaded, rubbing my back soothingly. "Please, Kurenai-chan, you have to calm down and breathe…"

Sucking in a gargling lungful, I repeated the action, inhalations growing deeper and slower with each panicked breath. Obito wrapped his arms around my torso, and my breathing eventually steadied, though my body was still wracked with tremors and my racing heartbeat faltered slightly.

I buried my face in the crook of Obito's shoulder in humiliation, crying out profanities that would have made Hidan cringe.

_I am not fucked up, I am not fucked up, I am not fucked up…_

"It's okay," he whispered, squeezing me reassuringly. "We're going to see Tsunade-sama with Rin-chan and Shizune-chan, aren't we? I'm sure she can help you, Kurenai-chan…"

I was not fucked up.

**Author's Note:**

> My lovely friend, [Joanne](http://jhlj.tumblr.com/), has drawn [fanart](https://goo.gl/photos/A3hWdXwr1mzEkdo28) for the fic!
> 
> [Violet-skya](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/2768962/) has drawn Kurenai along with other SI protagonists~ [[x](http://angelsfallbeforeus.deviantart.com/art/Leads-up-SI-550050259)]


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